Joe Rosenthal didn't know he had just captured the soul of a nation. He almost missed the shot entirely. He was busy piling up rocks to stand on so he could see over the edge of the crater on Mount Suribachi. It was February 23, 1945. The wind was howling. Men were dying just a few hundred yards away. And then, in one-four-hundredth of a second, history froze.
The photo of Iwo Jima—officially titled Raising the Flag on Mount Suribachi—is arguably the most reproduced image in the history of photography. You've seen it on stamps. You've seen it in bronze at Arlington National Cemetery. You’ve probably seen it on a thousand history book covers. But the story we tell ourselves about that image is often a sanitized version of the messy, chaotic, and occasionally controversial reality.
The First Flag vs. The Famous Flag
Most people don't realize there were two flag-raisings that day. This isn't some conspiracy theory; it’s a documented historical fact that the Marine Corps spent decades trying to sort out.
Early in the morning, a smaller flag went up. It was about 54 by 28 inches. When those first colors flew, the ships offshore erupted in whistles and horns. The troops on the beach cheered. It was a massive morale boost, but the flag was too small to be seen clearly from the other side of the island. More importantly, high-ranking officials wanted that first flag as a souvenir. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal reportedly said, "the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years." He wanted it.
Colonel Chandler Johnson, the battalion commander, wasn't having it. "I'll be damned if some big shot’s going to get our flag," he supposedly remarked. He ordered a second, much larger flag—harvested from a salvage ship at Pearl Harbor—to be raised so the first one could be secured and protected.
Rosenthal arrived as the second crew was getting ready. He didn't stage it. He didn't pose the men. In fact, he almost missed it because he was talking to Sergeant Bill Genaust, a motion picture cameraman. Genaust asked Rosenthal if he was in his way. Rosenthal turned, saw the motion, and swung his Speed Graphic camera around. He didn't even use the viewfinder.
Snap.
That was it. One frame.
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The Men in the Frame: A Case of Mistaken Identity
For over 70 years, the identities of the men in that photo were considered settled law. We were told they were Harlon Block, Rene Gagnon, Mike Strank, Franklin Sousley, Harold Schultz, and Ira Hayes.
But history is slippery.
In 2016, and again in 2019, the Marine Corps had to officially revise the lineup. It turns out that John Bradley, the Navy corpsman who became a central figure in the book and movie Flags of Our Fathers, wasn't actually in the Rosenthal photo. He had been involved in the first flag raising earlier that day. The man long thought to be Bradley was actually Harold "Pie" Schultz.
Why does this matter? Because for decades, Bradley lived with the "hero" label for a photo he wasn't even in. He rarely spoke about the war. His son, James Bradley, wrote an entire bestseller based on the premise that his father was one of those six silhouettes. Imagine finding out your family’s greatest legacy was a case of honest, chaotic misidentification.
The chaos of Iwo Jima didn't end when the shutter clicked. Three of the men in the photo—Strank, Block, and Sousley—were killed in action just days later. They never saw the photo. They never knew they were famous.
The Staging Myth That Won't Die
If you want to annoy a historian, tell them the photo of Iwo Jima was staged. This rumor started almost immediately and was partially Rosenthal's own fault, though it was a total misunderstanding.
After the flag was up, Rosenthal gathered a group of Marines for a "gung-ho" shot. They stood around the flag, cheering and waving their rifles. It was a classic, posed victory photo. Later, when a reporter asked Rosenthal if he had posed the photo, he thought they were talking about the "gung-ho" shot and said, "Sure."
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By the time he realized they were talking about the actual flag-raising, the narrative had already shifted. Critics used his admission to claim the most iconic image of World War II was a fake. But Bill Genaust’s color film footage proves otherwise. It shows the men struggling with the heavy pipe in real-time, the flag catching the wind, and the raw, unpolished movement of the moment. It was as real as it gets.
Why This Image Stuck
The technical qualities of the photo are a freak accident of perfection. It follows the "rule of thirds" almost perfectly. The line of the pole creates a powerful diagonal that suggests forward momentum and struggle.
But it’s the anonymity that makes it work. You can’t see their faces. Because you can’t see who they are, they become everyone. They represent the collective effort of the 70,000 Marines who hit those black sand beaches.
Iwo Jima was a meat grinder. The Japanese defenders had dug miles of tunnels. They weren't fighting on the island; they were fighting inside it. The casualty rates were staggering—nearly 7,000 Americans killed and over 19,000 wounded. In many ways, the photo became a necessary balm for a grieving public. It provided a visual anchor for the cost of victory.
The Tragedy of Ira Hayes
We can't talk about this photo without talking about Ira Hayes. A Pima Native American, Hayes survived the battle but couldn't survive the fame. He was whisked back to the States for a bond tour with the other survivors.
He hated it.
Hayes felt a deep sense of "survivor's guilt." He couldn't reconcile the fact that he was being hailed as a hero for a photo while his "good buddies"—the ones who actually did the heavy lifting, in his mind—were buried in the volcanic ash of Iwo Jima. He struggled with alcoholism and died in 1955 at the age of 32.
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His story adds a layer of darkness to the image. It reminds us that the "glory" of a photograph often masks the trauma of the person captured in it.
The Enduring Legacy in 2026
Even today, the photo of Iwo Jima remains a cultural touchstone. It has been parodied, homaged, and debated. It was the first photograph to win a Pulitzer Prize in the same year it was taken.
It’s interesting to look at how we view it now. In an era of AI-generated images and deepfakes, there’s something grounding about the grit of Rosenthal’s shot. You can see the grime on the uniforms. You can feel the weight of the steel pipe. It’s a physical record of a physical sacrifice.
How to Properly Study the Photo Today
If you really want to understand the impact of this image, don't just look at it on a screen.
- Visit the Marine Corps War Memorial: Located in Arlington, Virginia, the statue is based on the photo. Seeing the scale of it—the figures are 32 feet tall—gives you a sense of the "larger than life" status the image attained.
- Read the 2016 and 2019 USMC investigative reports: If you’re a history nerd, these documents are fascinating. They use forensic photo analysis to track everything from the buttons on the gaiters to the strap on a canteen to identify the men correctly.
- Watch the Genaust Footage: Look up the color film of the raising. It changes how you see the still photo. The still looks like a monument; the film looks like a struggle.
The photo of Iwo Jima isn't just a picture of a flag. It’s a picture of the moment the tide turned in the American consciousness during the Pacific War. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the most important moments in history aren't the ones we plan, but the ones we happen to catch when we're just trying to find a better place to stand.
To get a better sense of the actual geography, look up topographical maps of Mount Suribachi. Seeing how steep that climb actually was makes you realize that even getting that heavy pipe up there was a feat of sheer will. You might also look into the stories of the Navajo Code Talkers who played a pivotal role in the communication during the battle—a layer of the story that often gets overshadowed by the single image of the flag.