Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima

(pictured in 2001) is the dominant geographical feature of the island of Iwo Jima. On February 19, 1945, the United States invaded Iwo Jima as part of its island-hopping strategy to defeat Japan. Iwo Jima originally was not a target, but the relatively quick liberation of the Philippines left the Americans with a longer-than-expected lull prior to the planned invasion of Okinawa. Iwo Jima is located halfway between Japan and the Mariana Islands, where American long-range bombers were based, and was used by the Japanese as an early warning station, radioing warnings of incoming American bombers to the Japanese homeland. The Americans, after capturing the island, weakened the Japanese early warning system, and used it as an emergency landing strip for damaged bombers. Iwo Jima is a volcanic island, shaped like a trapezoid. From the air, it looks like a "lopsided, black porkchop". The island was heavily fortified, and the invading Marines suffered high casualties. Politically, the island is part of the prefecture of Tokyo. 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 island is dominated by Mount Suribachi, a dormant volcanic cone at the southern tip of the island. Tactically, the top of Suribachi was one of the most important locations on the island. From that vantage point, the Japanese defenders were able to spot artillery accurately onto the Americans—particularly the landing beaches. The Japanese fought most of the battle from underground bunkers and pillboxes. It was common for Marines to disable a pillbox using grenades or flamethrowers, only to come under renewed fire from it a few minutes later, after replacement Japanese infantry arrived into the pillbox through a tunnel. The American effort concentrated on isolating and capturing Suribachi first, a goal that was achieved on February 23, four days after the battle began. Despite capturing Suribachi, the battle continued to rage for many days, and the island would not be declared "secure" until 31 days later, on March 26, 1945. == Two flag-raisings ==

There were two American flags raised on top of Mount Suribachi, on February 23, 1945. The photograph Rosenthal took was actually of the second flag-raising, in which a larger replacement flag was raised by different Marines than those who raised the first flag. † Died in combat on Iwo Jima. Raising the first flag A U.S. flag was first raised atop Mount Suribachi soon after the mountaintop was captured at around 10:30 a.m. on February 23, 1945. Lieutenant Colonel Chandler W. Johnson, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division, ordered Marine Captain Dave Severance, commander of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, to send a platoon to seize and occupy the crest of Mount Suribachi. First Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier, executive officer of Easy Company, who had replaced the wounded Third Platoon commander, John Keith Wells, volunteered to lead a 40-man combat patrol up the mountain. Lieutenant Colonel Johnson (or 1st Lieutenant Greeley Wells, the battalion adjutant, whose job it was to carry the flag) had taken the flag from the battalion's transport ship, , 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. Despite the large numbers of Japanese troops in the vicinity, Schrier's patrol made it to the rim of the crater at about 10:15 a.m., having come under little or no enemy fire, as the Japanese were being bombarded at the time. 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. Schrier was later awarded the Navy Cross for volunteering to take the patrol up Mount Suribachi and raising the American flag, and a Silver Star Medal for a heroic action in March while in command of D Company, 2/28 Marines on Iwo Jima. , USMC, Left to right: 1st Lt. Harold Schrier (kneeling behind radioman's legs), Pfc. Raymond Jacobs (radioman reassigned from F Company), Sgt. Henry "Hank" Hansen wearing cap, holding flagstaff with left hand), Platoon Sgt. Ernest "Boots" Thomas (seated), Pvt. Phil Ward (holding lower flagstaff with his right hand), PhM2c. John Bradley, USN (holding flagstaff with both hands, his right hand above Ward's right hand and his left hand below.), Pfc. James Michels (holding M1 Carbine), and Cpl. Charles W. Lindberg (standing above Michels). Photographs of the first flag flown on Mount Suribachi were taken by Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery of Leatherneck magazine, who accompanied the patrol up the mountain, and other photographers afterwards. Others involved with the first flag-raising include Corporal Charles W. Lindberg (who also helped raise the flag), Privates First Class James Michels, Harold Schultz, Raymond Jacobs (F Company radioman), Private Phil Ward, and Navy corpsman John Bradley. This flag was too small, however, to be easily seen from the northern side of Mount Suribachi, where heavy fighting would go on for several more days. Raising the second flag The photograph taken by Rosenthal was the second flag-raising on top of Mount Suribachi, on February 23, 1945. 's film shot of the second flag-raising, excerpted from the 1945 Carriers Hit Tokyo newsreel On orders from Colonel Chandler Johnson—passed on by Easy Company's commander, Captain Dave Severance—Sergeant Michael Strank, one of Second Platoon's squad leaders, was to take three members of his rifle squad (Corporal Harlon 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; the three took supplies or laid telephone wire on the way to the top. Severance also dispatched Private First Class Rene A. Gagnon, the battalion runner (messenger) for Easy Company, to the command post for fresh SCR-300 walkie-talkie batteries to be taken to the top. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Albert Theodore Tuttle under Johnson's orders, had found a large (96-by-56–inch) flag in nearby Tank Landing Ship USS LST-779. He made his way back to the command post and gave it to Johnson. Johnson, in turn, gave it to Rene Gagnon, with orders to take it up to Schrier on Mount Suribachi and raise it. The official Marine Corps history of the event is that Tuttle received the flag from Navy Ensign Alan Wood of USS LST-779, who in turn had received the flag from a supply depot in Pearl Harbor. Severance had confirmed that the second larger flag was in fact provided by Alan Wood even though Wood could not recognize any of the pictures of the second flag's raisers as Gagnon. The flag was sewn by Mabel Sauvageau, a worker at the "flag loft" of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. the morning of February 23 looking for a flag. Resnick said he grabbed a flag from a bunting box and asked permission from his ship's commanding officer Lt. Felix Molenda to donate it. Resnick kept quiet about his participation until 2001." were climbing Suribachi at this time. On the way up, the trio met Lowery, who had photographed the first flag-raising, coming down. They considered turning around, but Lowery told them that the summit was an excellent vantage point from which to take photographs.) 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: Sergeant Genaust, who stood just about three feet away from photographer Rosenthal, was shooting motion-picture film during the second flag-raising. His footage captured the second event at an almost-identical angle to Rosenthal's iconic photograph. The six men who raised the second flag were: Ira Hayes, Harold Schultz (correctly identified in June 2016, previously identified as Navy corpman John Bradley), Michael Strank, Franklin Sousley, Harold Keller (correctly identified in 2019, previously identified as Marine corporal Rene Gagnon), and Harlon Block. Of these six, only Hayes, Keller, and Schultz survived the battle; all three would further survive the war. Strank and Block were both killed on March 1, just six days after the flag-raising—Strank by shellfire (possibly friendly fire from an American destroyer), and Block by a mortar round a few hours later. Franklin Sousley was killed by a Japanese sniper on March 21, just days before the island was officially secured. == Publication and staging confusion ==

After the flag-raising, Rosenthal sent his film to Guam to be developed and printed. As a result, Rosenthal was accused of staging the photograph or covering up the first flag-raising. One New York Times book reviewer suggested revoking his Pulitzer Prize. The misperception persisted for decades, despite Genaust's movie film that showed Rosenthal snapping his still camera as the flag was raised. Rosenthal repeatedly and vociferously denied the claims. "I don't think it is in me to do much more of this sort of thing," he said in 1995. "I don't know how to get across to anybody what 50 years of constant repetition means". == Incorrect identifications ==

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon seeing Rosenthal's flag-raising photograph, saw its potential to use for the upcoming Seventh War Loan Drive to help fund the war effort. He then ordered the flag-raisers to be identified and sent to Washington, D.C. after the fighting on the island ended (March 26, 1945). Rosenthal did not take the names of those in the photograph. On April 7, Rene Gagnon was the first of the second "flag-raisers" to arrive in Washington, D.C. Using an enlargement of the photograph that did not show the faces of the flag-raisers, he named himself, Henry Hansen, Franklin Sousley, John Bradley and Michael Strank, as being in the photograph. He initially refused to name Ira Hayes, as Hayes did not want the publicity and threatened him with physical harm. However, upon being summoned to Marine headquarters and told that refusal to name the last flag-raiser was a serious crime, he identified the sixth flag-raiser as Hayes. President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. On April 19, Bradley (then on crutches) and Hayes arrived in Washington, D.C. On April 20, the three surviving second flag-raisers, identified then as Gagnon, Bradley, and Hayes, met President Truman in the White House. On May 9, during a ceremony at the nation's capitol, the three men raised the original second flag to initiate the bond tour which began on May 11 in New York City. On May 24, Hayes was taken off the tour due to problems caused by drinking alcohol and ordered back to his regiment which had returned to Hawaii. Gagnon and Bradley completed the tour which ended on July 4 in Washington, D.C. The bond drive was a success, raising $26.3 billion, twice the tour's goal. Harlon Block and Henry Hansen Gagnon misidentified Corporal Harlon Block as Sergeant Henry O. "Hank" Hansen in Rosenthal's photo (both were killed in action on March 1). Initially, Bradley concurred with all of Gagnon's identifications. On April 8, 1945, the Marine Corps released the identification of five of the six flag raisers, including Hansen rather than Block (Sousley's identity was temporarily withheld pending notification of his family of his death during the battle). Block's mother, Belle Block, refused to accept the official identification, noting that she had "changed so many diapers on that boy's butt, I know it's my boy." Within his family, it was considered a taboo subject, and when they received calls or invitations to speak on certain holidays, they were told to say he was away fishing at his cottage. At the time of Bradley's death, his son James said that he knew almost nothing about his father's wartime experiences. Studying other photographs taken that day and video footage, Krelle and Foley argued that Franklin Sousley was in the fourth position (left to right) instead of Bradley and Harold Schultz of Los Angeles (originally from Detroit) was in the second position, previously identified as Sousley. On June 23, 2016, they confirmed Krelle's and Foley's findings, stating that Schultz was in Sousley's place, Sousley was standing next to Block, and that Bradley was not in the photo at all. James Bradley has also changed his mind, stating that he no longer believes his father is depicted in the famous photograph. Harold Keller and Rene Gagnon On October 16, 2019, the Marine Corps announced that Marine Corporal Harold Keller was the flag-raiser previously identified as Rene Gagnon in Rosenthal's photograph. Stephen Foley, filmmaker Dustin Spence, and Brent Westemeyer were key to this revised identification. Photos and video footage showed that the man thought to have been Gagnon had a wedding ring, which matched Keller, who had married in 1944 (Gagnon was not married at the time). The man also did not have a facial mole, as Gagnon did. Finally, a photo which captured the lowering of the first flag verified what Gagnon had looked like that day, which did not match the second man in the Rosenthal photo. After the battle, Keller returned to his hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa, where he died in 1979. == Legacy ==

Rosenthal's photograph was used as the basis for C. C. Beall's poster Now... All Together for the Seventh War Loan Drive (14 May - 30 June 1945). Rosenthal's photograph won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, the only photograph to win the prize in the same year it was taken. Upon seeing the finished model, the Marine Corps commandant had de Weldon assigned to the Marine Corps Bob Dylan later covered the song, as did Kinky Friedman. According to the song, after the war: Rene Gagnon, his wife, and his son visited Tokyo and Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima during the 20th anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima in 1965. After the war, he worked at Delta Air Lines as a ticket agent, opened his own travel agency, and was a maintenance director of an apartment complex in Manchester, New Hampshire. He died while at work in 1979, age 54. In other media at MCRD Parris Island Rosenthal's photograph has been reproduced in a number of other formats. It appeared on 3.5 million posters for the seventh war bond drive. The Iwo Jima flag-raising has been depicted in other films, including 1949's Sands of Iwo Jima (in which the three surviving flag raisers make a cameo appearance at the end of the film) and 1961's The Outsider, a biography of Ira Hayes starring Tony Curtis. In July 1945, the United States Postal Service released a postage stamp bearing the image. , Nairobi, Kenya, based on the famous image. The highly recognizable image is one of the most parodied photographs in history. Time magazine came under fire in 2008 after altering the image for use on its cover, replacing the American flag with a tree for an issue focused on global warming. The logo of the currently ruling National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland military junta in Niger features a silhouetted version of the photograph, however replacing the American flag with a Nigerien flag. In 2021 the Taliban posted a series of photos after the announcement that the Americans were withdrawing from Afghanistan. One of the photos posted shows Taliban soldiers raising a flag which has a notable similarity to Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, although it is uncertain if this was their intent or merely a coincidental similarity. == See also ==