It is probably the most famous photograph in history. You’ve seen it on postage stamps, bronze monuments, and in every high school history textbook ever printed. Six men, straining against the wind, hoisting a heavy pipe with the Stars and Stripes attached to it atop a desolate, volcanic mountain. Joe Rosenthal’s 1945 shot of the iwo jima flag raising picture is the definition of "iconic." It basically defined the American spirit for an entire generation.
But here’s the thing. Almost everything the average person thinks they know about that photo is slightly off.
It wasn't the first flag. It wasn't a "staged" shot in the way skeptics claim. And half of the guys in the photo didn't even make it off that island alive. To understand why this single frame of 35mm film still carries so much weight in 2026, you have to look at the messy, violent, and deeply confusing reality behind the shutter click.
That Wasn't the First Flag
The Battle of Iwo Jima was a nightmare. Pure and simple. The Marines landed on February 19, 1945, and they were essentially trying to take a giant, sulfurous rock that the Japanese had spent years turning into an underground fortress. By the fourth day of fighting, the high ground—Mount Suribachi—was finally within reach.
Around 10:30 a.m. on February 23, a 40-man patrol managed to reach the summit. They hauled a small American flag up there and tied it to a length of water pipe. When that first flag went up, the island erupted. Men on the beaches cheered. Ships offshore blew their whistles. It was a massive morale boost.
But that’s not the iwo jima flag raising picture you know.
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The flag you see in the famous photo was actually a second, much larger flag. Why the swap? Officially, it was because the first one was too small to be seen from the north end of the island. Unofficially, high-ranking officials wanted the first flag as a souvenir. Colonel Chandler Johnson reportedly said, "Some son of a bitch is going to want that flag, but he isn't going to get it. That's our flag." He ordered a larger flag—salvaged from a ship at Pearl Harbor—to be sent up the hill.
Joe Rosenthal, an Associated Press photographer, was hiking up the mountain just as the second crew was preparing to swap the flags. He almost missed it. He was busy piling up rocks to stand on because he was a short guy and couldn't see over the brush. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the motion. He swung his Speed Graphic camera around and snapped a single frame. He didn't even know if he’d caught the moment.
The "Staged" Myth That Won't Die
For decades, people have whispered that the iwo jima flag raising picture was a fake. A recreation. A "posed" shot.
Honestly, that rumor started because of a simple misunderstanding. After Rosenthal took the famous action shot, he asked the Marines to stick around and pose for a "gung-ho" shot—a group photo of everyone cheering under the flag. When he got back to Hawaii and people started raving about his "great photo," someone asked him if he had posed it. Thinking they meant the "gung-ho" shot, he said "sure."
By the time he realized they were talking about the actual flag-raising, the narrative had already spun out of control.
But if you look at the raw film, it’s clearly not staged. The composition is too perfect to be planned in the middle of a war zone. It was a lucky strike of lighting, wind, and timing. The way the men are positioned forms a pyramid—a classic structural shape in art that signals strength and stability. It was accidental genius.
The Tragic Identity Crisis
Identifying the six men in the photo took seventy years to get right. Seventy years.
For a long time, the official record listed the men as Harlon Block, Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, Harold Schultz, and Michael Strank. But the fog of war is real. In 2016 and again in 2019, the Marine Corps had to officially revise the names after amateur historians and forensic investigators started noticing discrepancies in the uniforms and gear.
It turns out John Bradley, the Navy corpsman who was long thought to be a central figure in the photo (and the subject of the book Flags of Our Fathers), wasn't actually in the Rosenthal photo. He had been involved in the first flag raising earlier that morning.
The final, corrected list of the men in the iwo jima flag raising picture is:
- Harlon Block (Killed in action six days later)
- Michael Strank (Killed in action six days later)
- Franklin Sousley (Killed in action nearly a month later)
- Harold Schultz (Survived, never sought fame, worked for the Post Office)
- Harold "Pie" Keller (Survived, also kept quiet for his entire life)
- Ira Hayes (Survived, but struggled deeply with the trauma and fame)
Three of these men died before the photo even reached the peak of its popularity back home. They never saw the posters. They never knew they had become the face of the war effort.
Why This Image Still Hits Hard
Ira Hayes is perhaps the most heartbreaking part of this story. He was a Pima Native American who survived the meat grinder of Iwo Jima only to be hauled back to the States to go on a "Bond Tour." The government used the survivors of the photo to raise money for the war.
Hayes hated it. He felt like a "fake" because his friends—the ones he considered the real heroes—were buried in the black sand of Iwo Jima. He struggled with alcoholism and PTSD long before there was a name for it. He famously said, "How can I feel like a hero when only five men in my platoon of 45 survived?"
The iwo jima flag raising picture represents the duality of the American experience in World War II. On one hand, it is a symbol of absolute triumph and the "Greatest Generation." On the other, it is a mask that hides the staggering loss of life. Of the 70,000 Marines who landed on that island, nearly 7,000 died. Another 20,000 were wounded.
When you look at the photo now, you aren't just looking at a victory. You're looking at a group of exhausted, terrified young men doing a job. Most of them didn't want to be icons. They just wanted to go home.
Technical Mastery in a Split Second
Rosenthal was using a Speed Graphic camera, which was the standard for press photographers at the time. It used large 4x5 inch sheets of film. This is why the photo is so incredibly sharp even when blown up to the size of a billboard.
He had his aperture set to somewhere between f/8 and f/11, and his shutter speed at 1/400th of a second. This was the perfect setting for a bright, slightly overcast day on a volcano. Because the film was so large, it captured every wrinkle in the uniforms and every grain of sand on the boots.
Interestingly, Rosenthal didn't even see the photo until days later. He sent his film off on a plane to Guam to be developed. The photo editor there, John Bodkin, saw the image and immediately knew it was something special. He radiophotoed it to New York. It hit the newspapers less than 18 hours after it was taken. In 1945, that was basically light speed.
Actionable Insights for History Enthusiasts
If you want to truly appreciate the history of the iwo jima flag raising picture, don't just look at the statue in Arlington. Dig into the primary sources.
- Visit the National Museum of the Marine Corps: They house the actual second flag from the photo. Seeing it in person—torn by the high winds of Suribachi—changes your perspective.
- Read "The Unknown Flag Raiser": This research by Eric Krelle and Stephen Foley is what led to the corrected identification of the men. It’s a masterclass in historical detective work.
- Watch the raw footage: Sergeant Bill Genaust was standing almost right next to Rosenthal filming with a movie camera. His color footage proves exactly how the event happened and debunks the "staged" conspiracy theories once and for all. Sadly, Genaust was killed in action shortly after filming.
- Contextualize the casualty rates: Understand that Iwo Jima was one of the few battles where American casualties actually exceeded Japanese casualties. This adds a layer of solemnity to the image that "patriotic" glossing often ignores.
The photograph remains a permanent fixture of our visual vocabulary because it captures a moment of transition. It shows the exact second that the momentum of the Pacific War shifted toward a conclusion. It isn't just a picture of a flag; it's a picture of the end of the beginning.
When you see it again, remember Harold Schultz. He lived a quiet life in Los Angeles after the war. He never told his family he was in the most famous photo in the world. When his stepdaughter once asked him about it, he simply said, "I was a Marine."
That humility is the real story behind the lens. The photo isn't about the glory of the individuals; it's about the collective weight of the moment. It reminds us that history is often made by people who don't even realize they are making it. They were just trying to get a flag up a hill so their friends on the beach would know the mountain was theirs.