Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima Tee

The invasion of Iwo Jima (February 19 – March 26, 1945), located 750 miles to the south of Tokyo, was the first U.S. attack on the Japanese Home Islands. The goal of the invasion was to capture the airfield, and on February 23, four days after the invasion, the American flag was raised on Mount Suribachi. The famous photograph we all know is of the second flag raising. The photo shown to the left is of the firs t f lag raising.

“ . . . [T]he Secretary of the Navy, James Forres tal, had decided the previous night that he wanted to go ashore and witness the final stage of the fight for the mountain. Now, under a stern commitment to take orders from Howlin’ Mad Smith, the secretary was churning ashore in the company of the blunt, earthy general. Their boat touched the beach just after the flag went up, and the mood among the high command turned jubilant. Gazing upward, at the red, white, and blue speck, Forrestal remarked to Smith: ‘Holland, the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years’.

“‘Forrestal was so taken with fervor of the moment that he decided he wanted the Second Battalion’s flag flying on Mt. Suribachi as a souvenir. The news of this wish did not sit well with 2nd Battalion Commander Chandler Johnson, whose temperament was every bit as fiery as Howlin Mad’s.

‘To hell with that!’ the colonel spat when the message reached him. The flag belonged to the battalion, as far as Johnson was concerned. He decided to secure it as soon as possible, and dispatched his assistant operations officer, Lieutenant Ted Tuttle, to the beach to obtain a replacement flag. As an after thought, Johnson called after Tuttle: ‘And make it a bigger one.’”

— James Bradley, ‘Flags of Our Fathers’

The replacement flag had been found in a salvage yard in Pearl Harbor.

The Battle of Iwo Jima lasted 36 days and claimed 6,821 American lives.

Rosenthal was a combat photographer, first with the Merchant Marine and later as an Associated Press correspondent, who saw the war up close. He crossed the North Atlantic in a convoy of Liberty ships that was attacked by German U-boats, was in London during the Blitz, and photographed Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Army fighting in the jungles of New Guinea. In the Pacific, he went into battle aboard a cruiser, a battleship, and an aircraft carrier, flew with Navy dive-bombers over the Japanese-occupied Philippines, and  went in with the first waves of Marines landing under fire on the islands of Guam, Peleliu, Angaur, and Iwo Jima. Before joining the Merchant Marine he tried to join the Army but was rejected because of his poor eyesight.