February 10, 2008

Raymond Jacobs, 82: He was believed to be the last living Marine photographed during the original flag-raising on Iwo Jima during World War II. Mr. Jacobs died Jan. 29 of natural causes at a Redding hospital, his daughter, Nancy Jacobs, said. Mr. Jacobs spent his later years working to prove that he was the radio operator photographed gazing up at the American flag as it was being raised by other Marines over Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. Newspaper accounts from the time show he was on the mountain during the initial raising of a smaller American flag, though he had returned to his unit by the time a more famous Associated Press photograph was taken of a flag-raising re-enactment later the same day. The radioman's face isn't fully visible in the first photograph published by Lou Lowery, a photographer for Leatherneck magazine, leading some veterans to question Jacobs' claim. But other negatives from the same roll of film show the radioman is Jacobs, said Retired Col. Walt Ford, editor of Leatherneck. “It's clearly a front-on face shot of Ray Jacobs,” Ford said.

Barry Morse, 82: He was made famous by his portrayal of the cold-hearted detective who relentlessly pursued the wrongly convicted Richard Kimble for four seasons in “The Fugitive,” one of the biggest TV hits of the 1960s. Mr. Morse died Feb. 2 in London. Slim and angular-faced, Mr. Morse was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and played hundreds of roles on stage and screen in his seven-decade career but never quite escaped his role in “The Fugitive.” As Lt. Philip Gerard, he hounded David Janssen as Richard Kimble, the doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Ind., who was convicted on flimsy evidence of murdering his wife. For 120 episodes, from 1963 through 1967, Gerard pursued Kimble, who had escaped – on the lieutenant's watch – when the train taking him to death row derailed. The innocent doctor's only hope was finding the real killer, a one-armed man. For years after the series ended, Mr. Morse joked that “he was the most hated man in America.” Little old ladies would come up to him in airports and whack at him with their purses, screaming, “Why didn't you leave that man alone?”

Harry Richard Landis, 108: He enlisted in the Army in 1918 and was one of only two known surviving U.S. veterans of World War I. Mr. Landis, who lived at a Sun City Center nursing home, died Monday, according to the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs. The remaining U.S. veteran is Frank Buckles, 107, of Charles Town, W.Va., according the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In addition, John Babcock of Spokane, Wash., 107, served in the Canadian army and is the last known Canadian veteran of the war. Another World War I vet, Ohioan J. Russell Coffey, died in December at 109. The last known German World War I veteran, Erich Kaestner, died New Year's Day at 107. Mr. Landis trained as a U.S. Army recruit for 60 days at the end of the war and never went overseas. But the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs counts him among the 4.7 million men and woman who served during the Great War.

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