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Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, by Joe Rosenthal / The
Associated Press. Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is a
historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe
Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a
U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States
atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in
World War II.
The photograph was extremely popular, being reprinted in
thousands of publications. Later, it became the only
photograph to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in
the same year as its publication, and came to be
regarded in the United States as one of the most
significant and recognizable images of the war, and
possibly the most reproduced photograph of all time.
Which is the Background picture of this web site.
Of the six men depicted in the picture, three (Franklin
Sousley, Harlon Block, and Michael Strank) did not
survive the battle; the three survivors (John Bradley,
Rene Gagnon, and Ira Hayes) became celebrities upon
their identification in the photo. The picture was later
used by Felix de Weldon to sculpt the USMC War Memorial,
located adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery just
outside Washington, D.C.
Iwo Jima is a volcanic island, shaped like a trapezium.
Marines on the island described it as "a gray pork
chop". The island was heavily fortified, and the
invading United States Marines suffered high casualties.
The island is dominated by Mount Suribachi, a 546 foot
(166 m) dormant volcanic cone situated on the southern
tip of the island. Politically, the island is part of
the prefecture of Tokyo—the mayor of Tokyo is the mayor
of Iwo Jima. It would be the first Japanese homeland
soil to be captured by the Americans, and it was a
matter of honor for the Japanese to prevent its capture.
The famous picture taken by Rosenthal actually captured
the second flag-raising event of the day. A U.S. flag
was first raised atop Suribachi soon after it was
captured early in the morning (around 10:20) of February
23, 1945. 2nd Battalion Commander Chandler Johnson
ordered Captain Dave E. Severance to send a platoon to
go take the mountain.[4] Severance, the commander of
Easy Company (2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, 5th Marine
Division), ordered First Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier to
lead the patrol. Just before Schrier was to head up the
mountain Commander Chandler Johnson handed him a flag
saying, "if you get to the top put it up."
| On orders from Colonel
Chandler Johnson, passed on by Captain
Severance, Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal
Harlon H. Block, Private First Class
Franklin R. Sousley and Private First Class
Ira H. Hayes spent the morning of the 23rd
laying a telephone wire to the top of
Suribachi. Severance also dispatched Private
First Class Rene A. Gagnon, a runner, to the
command post for fresh SCR-300 walkie-talkie
batteries.
Rosenthal's trio reached
the summit as the Marines were attaching the
flag to an old Japanese water pipe.
Rosenthal put down his Speed Graphic camera
(which was set to 1/400th of a second
shutter speed, with the f-stop between 8 and
16) on the ground so he could pile rocks to
stand on for a better vantage point. In
doing so, he nearly missed the shot. Along
with Navy Pharmacist's Mate Second Class
John H. Bradley, the five Marines began
raising the U. S. flag. Realizing he was
about to miss it, Rosenthal quickly swung
his camera up and snapped the photograph
without using the viewfinder. Ten years
after the flag-raising, Rosenthal wrote:
Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the
men start the flag up. I swung my camera and
shot the scene. That is how the picture was
taken, and when you take a picture like
that, you don't come away saying you got a
great shot. You don't know.
Bill Genaust, who was standing almost
shoulder-to-shoulder with Rosenthal about
thirty yards from the flag raising, was
shooting motion-picture film during the
flag-raising. His film captures the flag
raising at an almost-identical angle to
Rosenthal's famous shot.
Of the six men pictured — Michael Strank,
Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley,
John Bradley, and Harlon Block — only three
(Hayes, Gagnon, and Bradley) survived the
battle. Strank was killed six days after the
flag raising when a shell, likely fired from
an offshore American destroyer, tore his
heart out; Block was killed by a mortar a
few hours after Strank; Sousley — the last
of the flag-raisers to succumb — was shot
and killed by a sniper on March 21, a few
days before the island was declared secure
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