You’ve seen it a thousand times. It is etched into the bronze of the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington and printed on roughly millions of postage stamps. The picture of raising the flag on Iwo Jima is, without a doubt, the most iconic image of American military history. But honestly? Most people have the story backwards. They think it shows the moment the battle was won. It wasn't. They think it was a posed propaganda shot. It wasn't that either.
The reality is way more complicated, a bit messy, and honestly, pretty heartbreaking.
The Chaos of Mount Suribachi
February 23, 1945. It was a Friday. The battle for this tiny, volcanic island had been raging for four days, and the casualty rates were already stomach-churning. If you were a Marine on that beach, you were basically standing on a giant ash heap while being shot at from every direction. Mount Suribachi, that 554-foot dormant volcano at the southern tip of the island, loomed over everything like a death sentence.
The Japanese had spent years turning the mountain into a literal honeycomb of bunkers and tunnels. Taking it was essential. When a 40-man patrol from the 28th Marines, 5th Division, finally reached the rim of the crater around 10:30 a.m., they raised a small American flag.
People cheered. The ships off the coast blew their whistles. It was a huge morale boost. But that isn't the picture of raising the flag on Iwo Jima that you know.
That first flag was too small. You couldn’t see it from the north end of the island where the fighting was still a meat grinder. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had just landed on the beach and decided he wanted that flag as a souvenir. Colonel Chandler Johnson, the battalion commander, wasn’t having it. He thought the flag belonged to the battalion. He famously told his assistant operations officer, "Easy" Heupel, to get a second, larger flag up there. He wanted the first one back for safekeeping.
Enter Joe Rosenthal.
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Why the Second Flag Became "The" Image
Rosenthal was an Associated Press photographer who almost didn't make it to the top because he was short, nearsighted, and lugging a heavy Speed Graphic camera. By the time he got to the summit, the first flag was already coming down and the second, much larger flag—salvaged from a ship at Pearl Harbor—was going up.
Rosenthal didn't even look through the viewfinder.
He piled up some stones and a sandbag to stand on, saw the movement out of the corner of his eye, and swung his camera around. He snapped one frame at 1/400th of a second. That was it. One shot. He actually thought he’d missed it. Later, when he took a group shot of the Marines (the "Gung Ho" photo), he assumed that was the one people would care about.
When the film was developed in Guam, the AP editor took one look and sent it to New York via radiophoto. It hit the Sunday papers less than 18 hours later. It was a sensation.
The "Posed" Myth That Won't Die
For decades, people have claimed the picture of raising the flag on Iwo Jima was staged. Rosenthal himself accidentally fueled this. When someone asked him if he'd posed the photo shortly after it was taken, he thought they meant the "Gung Ho" group shot and said "Sure." He spent the rest of his life trying to correct that record.
If you look at the raw footage captured by Sergeant Bill Genaust, who was standing right next to Rosenthal filming with a color movie camera, you can see it’s completely spontaneous. The men are struggling with a heavy pipe in the wind. It’s awkward. It’s real.
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The Men in the Frame: A Case of Mistaken Identity
This is where the story gets heavy. The U.S. government needed heroes for a war bond drive, and they needed them fast. They identified the six men in the photo, but they got it wrong. Several times.
It took decades—literally until 2016 and 2019—for the Marine Corps to officially correct the names. Modern forensic analysis of other photos taken that day proved that some of the men identified as being in the shot were actually elsewhere on the mountain.
The finalized list of the six men in the picture of raising the flag on Iwo Jima is:
- Harlon Block (Killed in action six days later)
- Harold Keller (Survived)
- Ira Hayes (Survived, but struggled deeply with his "hero" status)
- Harold Schultz (Survived, never told his family he was in the photo)
- Franklin Sousley (Killed in action less than a month later)
- Michael Strank (Killed by "friendly" fire just days after the photo)
Think about that. Three of the six men in that "triumphant" photo died on that island before the battle even ended.
Ira Hayes, a Pima Native American, became a tragic figure because of this image. He was paraded around the U.S. to sell bonds, but he hated it. He felt it was a lie to call him a hero when his friends—the "real" heroes, in his mind—were buried in the black sand of Iwo Jima. He struggled with alcoholism and died at 32.
The Brutal Reality of the Battle
People often forget that the picture of raising the flag on Iwo Jima happened on the fifth day of a 36-day battle.
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Raising the flag didn't mean the fighting stopped. It actually got worse. The Marines had to move north into "The Meat Grinder." By the time the island was declared "secure," nearly 7,000 Americans were dead. On the Japanese side, out of a garrison of roughly 21,000, only about 1,000 survived to be taken prisoner.
It was a nightmare of flamethrowers and hand grenades.
The Power of a Single Moment
Why does this one photo still work? It’s the composition. It’s almost perfect. The diagonal line of the flagpole, the way the men are leaning forward, the tension in their legs. It looks like a Renaissance painting.
It captures the essence of collective effort. You can't see their faces. This is actually key to why it became so famous—because they are faceless, they could be anyone’s son, brother, or husband. It turned six specific individuals into a universal symbol of the American spirit.
How to Engage With This History Today
If you want to truly understand the weight of the picture of raising the flag on Iwo Jima, you have to look beyond the silhouette.
- Visit the Marine Corps War Memorial: It’s located in Arlington, Virginia. Standing at the base of those 32-foot-tall bronze figures gives you a sense of scale that a computer screen just can't.
- Read "Flags of Our Fathers": James Bradley (son of John Bradley, who was long misidentified as being in the photo) wrote this. While the identification of his father turned out to be incorrect, the book’s description of the combat and the lives of the men is still incredibly powerful.
- Watch the Genaust Film: Search for the 16mm color footage shot by Bill Genaust. Seeing the flag go up in motion removes the "statue" feel and reminds you that these were just kids in dirty uniforms doing a job.
- Research the 2016/2019 Identifications: Look into the work of amateur historians like Eric Krelle and Stephen Foley. They used digital mapping and gear patterns (like canteen placements and helmet straps) to prove the Marine Corps had the wrong names for over 70 years. It’s a fascinating look at how history is never really "settled."
The photo isn't just a piece of paper or a digital file. It’s a reminder that symbols are often born from chaos, and that the people inside the symbols are rarely the ones who get to tell their own stories. When you look at it now, try to see the dust, the wind, and the three men who never made it off that rock alive. That's where the real power lies.