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If this is posted else where let me know...I didnt see it.
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Mystery drapes disappearance of U.S. flag made famous on 9/11
Rick Hampson
USA Today
Aug. 31, 2006 08:06 AM
NEW YORK - On April 1, 2002, a flag that had become the emblem of American resilience was unfurled in a solemn, wordless ceremony outside City Hall.
Hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, three firefighters had spontaneously used a U.S. flag taken off a yacht and raised it in the wreckage of the World Trade Center. A newspaper photographer captured the scene, creating a classic image.
Seven months later, the three firemen were guests of honor as the flag was run up the City Hall pole. But Dan McWilliams, one of the firemen, said softly, "That's not the flag."
Bill Kelly, the firefighters' lawyer, stared at him. "That's much bigger than the one we put up," McWilliams explained. Kelly says he looked at the other two firemen: "They said, 'No, that's not it.' " The men said nothing more, and the flag flew at City Hall for a week before beginning a tour of police stations and firehouses.
It was an impostor. Five years after Sept. 11, the day's most famous artifact is still missing.
"It's a piece of history," says Shirley Dreifus, owner of the yacht from which one of the firemen took the flag. "I don't think the average citizen knows it's missing."
The flag in the photograph taken on Sept. 11 by Thomas Franklin of The Record of Bergen County, N.J., was 3 feet by 5 feet. The one raised at City Hall - and flown at Yankee Stadium and on warships and once destined for the Smithsonian - is 5 by 8.
How did the flags get switched? Did someone replace the smaller with the larger at Ground Zero? If so, why? And what happened to the original?
Photo captured a moment
The three firemen raised the flag at the darkest hour of one of the darkest days in U.S. history. The twin towers were in smithereens. After six hours of searching, it was apparent there were few survivors.
As McWilliams walked past a yacht docked on the Hudson River, he spotted an American flag attached to a broken wooden pole. He grabbed it and walked back toward Ground Zero, joined en route by George Johnson, a member of his Brooklyn ladder company, and Billy Eisengrein, whom he'd known since they were kids on Staten Island.
At Ground Zero, the firefighters found a long metal flagpole jutting at a 45-degree angle from a ledge about 20 feet above the ground. They climbed up and began rigging the flag to the pole.
They never saw Franklin, who took the picture from about 100 feet away. As he was shooting, he thought of the famous photo of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima in 1945.
The Record sent the photo to the Associated Press - and through its network to the world. Over the next year the image appeared on U.S. commandos' "calling cards" on the battlefields of Afghanistan, on a postage stamp, on the side of a barn in Upstate New York.
Within 10 days after it was raised, the flag - or rather, a flag - was taken down by the fire department; the Navy wanted to borrow it for display on the carrier Theodore Roosevelt, heading to the Arabian Sea off Afghanistan.
On Sept. 23, the same flag appeared at a service at Yankee Stadium, where it was signed by Gov. George Pataki, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the fire and police commissioners. Then it was flown off to the Roosevelt.
In January 2002, Shirley Dreifus called USA Today to say the flag came from the yacht Star of America, owned by her and her husband. The firefighters signed an affidavit confirming that claim.
In March, as the carrier returned to Norfolk, Va., Johnson and Eisengrein were flown onboard to accept the flag, folded in a triangle, on behalf of the city.
That summer, Dreifus asked the city to borrow the flag for a firefighters' fundraiser on the yacht. When she got the flag, she realized it was too big to have been the yacht's.
"I don't doubt it flew at Ground Zero," Dreifus says of the larger flag - it even smelled of smoke. "It just wasn't the one from our boat."
Pressing the search
They demanded that the city find the right one. In what Dreifus describes as an attempt to "put some energy" behind the search, they sued the city for $525,000 - the price at which appraisers valued the flag, which originally cost $50.
The city couldn't find the flag, and the suit was dropped. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he didn't know where the flag was: "I don't know where Osama bin Laden is, either."
Coincidentally, two flags also were raised on Iwo Jima by different groups of servicemen. The second, larger one was in the Associated Press photo; both are in the Marine Corps collection in Quantico, Va.
David Friend, a Vanity Fair editor and author of a new book on the visual images of Sept. 11, says he believes the flag was switched within days.
The three firemen have declined interview requests over the past five years. But Friend's book, "Watching the World Change", quotes Billy Eisengrein as saying that while working at Ground Zero a few days after the attacks, he noticed the flag was gone from the pole: "Who took it down, I have no idea."
Was the first flag replaced because it was too small? Was it lowered when it began to rain and innocently switched with another flag found at the site? Did someone in the fire department not want to let the Navy borrow it? Once the photo appeared on the front page of the New York Post on Sept. 13, did a thief realize its value? Was Ground Zero in the week after the attack still sufficiently chaotic to allow someone to take the flag unnoticed?
Dreifus keeps an eye on the Internet to make sure no one tries to sell it: "I think whoever took it down must know what it was."
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Mystery drapes disappearance of U.S. flag made famous on 9/11
Rick Hampson
USA Today
Aug. 31, 2006 08:06 AM
NEW YORK - On April 1, 2002, a flag that had become the emblem of American resilience was unfurled in a solemn, wordless ceremony outside City Hall.
Hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, three firefighters had spontaneously used a U.S. flag taken off a yacht and raised it in the wreckage of the World Trade Center. A newspaper photographer captured the scene, creating a classic image.
Seven months later, the three firemen were guests of honor as the flag was run up the City Hall pole. But Dan McWilliams, one of the firemen, said softly, "That's not the flag."
Bill Kelly, the firefighters' lawyer, stared at him. "That's much bigger than the one we put up," McWilliams explained. Kelly says he looked at the other two firemen: "They said, 'No, that's not it.' " The men said nothing more, and the flag flew at City Hall for a week before beginning a tour of police stations and firehouses.
It was an impostor. Five years after Sept. 11, the day's most famous artifact is still missing.
"It's a piece of history," says Shirley Dreifus, owner of the yacht from which one of the firemen took the flag. "I don't think the average citizen knows it's missing."
The flag in the photograph taken on Sept. 11 by Thomas Franklin of The Record of Bergen County, N.J., was 3 feet by 5 feet. The one raised at City Hall - and flown at Yankee Stadium and on warships and once destined for the Smithsonian - is 5 by 8.
How did the flags get switched? Did someone replace the smaller with the larger at Ground Zero? If so, why? And what happened to the original?
Photo captured a moment
The three firemen raised the flag at the darkest hour of one of the darkest days in U.S. history. The twin towers were in smithereens. After six hours of searching, it was apparent there were few survivors.
As McWilliams walked past a yacht docked on the Hudson River, he spotted an American flag attached to a broken wooden pole. He grabbed it and walked back toward Ground Zero, joined en route by George Johnson, a member of his Brooklyn ladder company, and Billy Eisengrein, whom he'd known since they were kids on Staten Island.
At Ground Zero, the firefighters found a long metal flagpole jutting at a 45-degree angle from a ledge about 20 feet above the ground. They climbed up and began rigging the flag to the pole.
They never saw Franklin, who took the picture from about 100 feet away. As he was shooting, he thought of the famous photo of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima in 1945.
The Record sent the photo to the Associated Press - and through its network to the world. Over the next year the image appeared on U.S. commandos' "calling cards" on the battlefields of Afghanistan, on a postage stamp, on the side of a barn in Upstate New York.
Within 10 days after it was raised, the flag - or rather, a flag - was taken down by the fire department; the Navy wanted to borrow it for display on the carrier Theodore Roosevelt, heading to the Arabian Sea off Afghanistan.
On Sept. 23, the same flag appeared at a service at Yankee Stadium, where it was signed by Gov. George Pataki, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the fire and police commissioners. Then it was flown off to the Roosevelt.
In January 2002, Shirley Dreifus called USA Today to say the flag came from the yacht Star of America, owned by her and her husband. The firefighters signed an affidavit confirming that claim.
In March, as the carrier returned to Norfolk, Va., Johnson and Eisengrein were flown onboard to accept the flag, folded in a triangle, on behalf of the city.
That summer, Dreifus asked the city to borrow the flag for a firefighters' fundraiser on the yacht. When she got the flag, she realized it was too big to have been the yacht's.
"I don't doubt it flew at Ground Zero," Dreifus says of the larger flag - it even smelled of smoke. "It just wasn't the one from our boat."
Pressing the search
They demanded that the city find the right one. In what Dreifus describes as an attempt to "put some energy" behind the search, they sued the city for $525,000 - the price at which appraisers valued the flag, which originally cost $50.
The city couldn't find the flag, and the suit was dropped. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he didn't know where the flag was: "I don't know where Osama bin Laden is, either."
Coincidentally, two flags also were raised on Iwo Jima by different groups of servicemen. The second, larger one was in the Associated Press photo; both are in the Marine Corps collection in Quantico, Va.
David Friend, a Vanity Fair editor and author of a new book on the visual images of Sept. 11, says he believes the flag was switched within days.
The three firemen have declined interview requests over the past five years. But Friend's book, "Watching the World Change", quotes Billy Eisengrein as saying that while working at Ground Zero a few days after the attacks, he noticed the flag was gone from the pole: "Who took it down, I have no idea."
Was the first flag replaced because it was too small? Was it lowered when it began to rain and innocently switched with another flag found at the site? Did someone in the fire department not want to let the Navy borrow it? Once the photo appeared on the front page of the New York Post on Sept. 13, did a thief realize its value? Was Ground Zero in the week after the attack still sufficiently chaotic to allow someone to take the flag unnoticed?
Dreifus keeps an eye on the Internet to make sure no one tries to sell it: "I think whoever took it down must know what it was."
RAY WAS HERE 08/28/05
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