I love history, especially U.S. history. It has always fascinated me to read and learn about the men and women that came before us that helped to shape our great nation. World War II history is my favorite to read about. There are so many amazing stories from this generation, and this particular historical account happens to involve one of the most famous photographs ever taken.
On this day 79 years ago, after months of naval and air bombardment, U.S. Marines invaded Iwo Jima. In thirty-six days of fighting on the island, nearly 7,000 U.S. Marines were killed. Another 20,000 were wounded. The island was finally declared secured on March 26, 1945. It had been one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history.
After the battle, Iwo Jima served as an emergency landing site for more than 2,200 B-29 bombers, saving the lives of 24,000 U.S. airmen. Securing Iwo Jima prepared the way for the last and largest battle in the Pacific: the invasion of Okinawa.
The flag-raising atop Mt. Suribachi took place on February 23, 1945; five days after the battle began. There were actually two flags raised that day. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took the famous photograph of five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the second flag. The U.S. flag was first raised atop Mt. Suribachi soon after the mountaintop was captured at around 10:30 a.m. Lieutenant Colonel Chandler W. Johnson ordered a platoon to seize and occupy the crest of Mt. Suribachi. First Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier volunteered to lead a 40-man combat patrol up the mountain. Lieutenant Colonel Johnson had taken the 54x28 inch flag from the battalion's transport ship, USS Missoula and handed the flag to Schrier. Johnson said to Schrier, "If you get to the top, put it up." Schrier assembled the patrol at 8 a.m. to begin the climb up the mountain.
The first flag was attached by Schrier and two Marines to a Japanese iron water pipe found on top, and the flagstaff was raised and planted by Schrier, Platoon Sergeant Ernest Thomas and Sergeant Oliver Hansen. The raising of the national colors immediately caused a loud cheering reaction from the Marines, sailors and coast guardsmen on the beach below and from the men on the ships near the beach. The loud noise made by the servicemen and blasts of the ship horns alerted the Japanese, who up to this point had stayed in their cave bunkers. Schrier and his men near the flagstaff then came under fire from Japanese troops, but the Marines quickly eliminated the threat.
Photographs of the first flag flown on Mt. Suribachi were taken by Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery of Leatherneck magazine, who accompanied the patrol up the mountain. This flag was too small, however, to be easily seen from the northern side of Mt Suribachi, where heavy fighting would go on for several more days.
First flag raised on Mt. Suribachi. Photograph by Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery of Leatherneck magazine at 10:30 a.m. on February 25, 1945.
On orders from Colonel Chandler W. Johnson, Sergeant Michael Strank was to take three members of his rifle squad (Corporal Harlan H. Block and Privates First Class Franklin R. Sousley and Ira H. Hayes) and climb up Mount Suribachi to raise a replacement flag on top. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Albert Theodore Tuttle had found a large 96x56 inch flag in nearby Tank Landing Ship USS LST-779 and gave it to Johnson. Johnson, in turn passed it on to Private First Class Rene A. Gagnon with orders to take it up to Schrier on Mount Suribachi and raise it.
Gagnon, Strank, and Strank’s three Marines reached the top of the mountain around noon without being fired upon. Rosenthal, along with several other Marine photographers were climbing Suribachi at this time. On the way up, the photographers met Lowery who had photographed the first flag-raising, coming down. They considered turning around, but Lowery told them the summit was an excellent vantage point from which to take photographs. The three photographers reached the summit as the Marines were attaching the second, larger flag to an old Japanese water pipe.
Rosenthal put his Speed Graphic camera on the ground (set to 1/400 sec shutter speed, with the f-stop between 8 and 11 and Agfa film) so he could pile rocks to stand on for a better vantage point. In doing so, he nearly missed the shot. The Marines began raising the flag. Realizing he was about to miss the action, 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.”
The most well-known photograph of the second flag raising at Iwo Jima, taken by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945 around noon.
The flag raisers were Cpl. Harlon Block, Navy Pharmacist's Mate John Bradley, Cpl. Rene Gagnon, PFC Franklin Sousley, Sgt. Michael Strank, and Cpl. Ira Hayes. Three of these men - Strank, Sousley, and Block - were killed before the battle for Iwo Jima was over.
Rosenthal’s photograph was quickly wired around the world and reproduced in newspapers across the United States. It won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, the only photograph to win the prize in the same year it was taken.
Photographer Joe Rosenthal poses July 1, 200O in San Francisco, California with his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of U.S. Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)
News pros were not the only ones greatly impressed by the photo. Navy Captain T.B. Clark was on duty at Patuxent Air Station in Maryland that Saturday when it came humming off the wire in 1945. He studied it for a minute, and then thrust it under the gaze of Navy Petty Officer Felix de Weldon. De Weldon was an Austrian immigrant schooled in European painting and sculpture. De Weldon could not take his eyes off the photo. In its classic triangular lines he recognized similarities with the ancient statues he had studied. He reflexively reached for some sculptor's clay and tools. With the photograph before him he labored through the night. Within 72 hours of the photo's release, he had replicated the six boys pushing a pole, raising a flag.
Upon seeing the finished model, the Marine Corps commandant had de Weldon assigned to the Marine Corps until de Weldon was discharged from the Navy after the war was over.
Starting in 1951, de Weldon was commissioned to design a memorial to the Marine Corps. It took de Weldon and hundreds of his assistants three years to finish it. Hayes, Gagnon, and Bradley posed for de Weldon, who used their faces as a model. The three Marine flag raisers who did not survive the battle were sculpted from photographs.
The U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia was unveiled November 10, 1954.
It never ceases to amaze me how much of an impact one photograph can have, which is one of the many reasons I love photography and capturing the world around me. Rosenthal’s famous photograph of the five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the flag on the summit of Mt. Suribachi is one that captured so much more than just a pivotal moment in time, it captured the heart of the greatest generation, one that we can learn so much from:
“Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue.”
-Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
Semper Fi.