It’s the most famous photograph in American history. You know the one. Six men, straining against the weight of a heavy pipe, hoisting an American flag atop a jagged, volcanic peak. It looks like a painting. It looks perfect. But the story of the US Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi isn't just a story about a photo op or a single moment of triumph. It’s actually a messy, tragic, and deeply misunderstood sequence of events that took decades to fully sort out.
Mount Suribachi was a nightmare.
Iwo Jima is a tiny speck of volcanic rock in the Pacific, and in February 1945, it was the most heavily fortified piece of ground on Earth. The Japanese had spent years digging miles of tunnels. They weren't just on the mountain; they were inside it. When the 28th Marines finally reached the summit on February 23, they weren't greeted with a parade. They were exhausted, filthy, and constantly under fire from snipers hiding in caves.
The Flag You Didn't See
Most people think there was only one flag. There wasn't.
Early that morning, Lieutenant Colonel Chandler Johnson sent a 40-man patrol up the mountain. They carried a small flag, roughly 54 by 28 inches, taken from the USS Missoula. When they reached the top around 10:20 AM, they tied it to a length of water pipe and shoved it into the ground. That was the real moment of victory. Down on the beaches, the Marines and sailors let out a roar. Ships blew their whistles. It was a massive morale boost for men who had been dying in the black sand for four days.
But that flag was too small.
Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had just landed on the beach and decided he wanted that flag as a souvenir. Colonel Johnson was annoyed. He famously said, "To hell with that," and ordered his men to get a second, much larger flag—this one was 96 by 56 inches—so that "every son of a bitch on this whole cruddy island can see it."
That’s where Joe Rosenthal comes in.
How the US Marines Raising the Flag Became an Icon
Rosenthal was a photographer for the Associated Press. He almost missed the shot. As he was scrambling up the hill, he heard that the first flag was already up. He kept climbing anyway, hoping to get a shot of the flag flying. When he got to the top, he saw a group of Marines preparing to swap the small flag for the larger one.
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He didn't use a viewfinder. He literally piled up some rocks and sandbags to stand on, waited for the movement, and snapped the shutter of his Speed Graphic camera. He wasn't even sure if he got anything good.
The result was the "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" photo. It’s hauntingly beautiful because of its composition. The diagonal line of the pole, the way the wind catches the stars and stripes, the anonymous effort of the men whose faces are mostly hidden—it looks heroic because it was. But because the photo was so perfect, rumors started almost immediately that it was staged.
It wasn't.
Rosenthal was actually annoyed by the accusation for the rest of his life. He had taken a separate, posed "Gung Ho" shot of the Marines cheering under the flag after the raising, and when someone later asked if he had staged "the" photo, he thought they meant the cheering one and said yes. That single misunderstanding fueled conspiracy theories for decades.
The Problem of Identity
For years, the Marine Corps insisted they knew exactly who was in that photo. They were wrong.
In the chaos of 1945, identifying men in combat gear from the back was nearly impossible. Three of the six men in the photo—Franklin Sousley, Harlon Block, and Michael Strank—were killed in action on Iwo Jima just days or weeks after the photo was taken. They never even knew they were famous.
The government needed the survivors for a war bond tour. They identified Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, and a young corpsman named John Bradley.
Except it wasn't John Bradley.
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In 2016, following a deep dive by amateur historians Eric Krelle and Stephen Foley, the Marine Corps officially admitted that Private First Class Harold Schultz was actually the sixth man, not Bradley. Then, in 2019, they corrected the record again. Rene Gagnon wasn't in the photo either; it was actually Corporal Harold "Pie" Keller.
Does this change the meaning of the US Marines raising the flag? Not really. But it highlights the frantic, desperate nature of the Pacific War. These men were replaceable cogs in a giant military machine, and the fact that we spent 70 years attributing the photo to the wrong people is a testament to how little "fame" mattered in the middle of a slaughterhouse.
Why Ira Hayes Couldn't Handle the Fame
We have to talk about Ira Hayes. He was a Pima Native American and one of the men who survived. He hated the photo.
While the public saw him as a hero, Hayes felt like a fraud. He had watched his friends—the "real" heroes, in his mind—get blown apart on that island. Being pulled off the front lines to wear a clean uniform and stand on a stage to sell war bonds felt like a betrayal to him. He struggled with what we now call PTSD and turned to alcohol to numb the guilt.
He once walked over 1,300 miles just to tell Harlon Block’s family that their son was actually in the photo, even though the government said he wasn't. Hayes died in 1955, alone and broken, less than ten years after the war ended. His story is the dark side of that heroic image. It reminds us that behind every "patriotic" icon are human beings who are often shattered by the events that make them famous.
The Significance of Iwo Jima Today
Why does this still rank as a top search? Why do we still care?
Basically, Iwo Jima was the turning point for the Marine Corps' identity. Before WWII, there were people in Washington who wanted to get rid of the Marines entirely, thinking they were redundant. The sheer grit shown on Suribachi proved they were essential.
The battle lasted 36 days. The US suffered 26,000 casualties, including 6,800 dead. Nearly one-third of all Marines killed in WWII died on that one eight-square-mile island. The US Marines raising the flag became the visual shorthand for that sacrifice. It wasn't about the mountain. It was about the fact that they were still standing.
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Technical Details of the Photo
- Camera: Speed Graphic (4x5)
- Shutter Speed: 1/400th of a second
- Film: Film pack, not rolls
- Date: February 23, 1945
If you ever go to the National Museum of the Marine Corps, you can see the actual second flag. It’s huge. It’s also torn. The wind on top of Suribachi was so fierce it began to shred the fabric almost immediately. It’s a reminder that nothing on that island was easy.
Correcting the Record: Who Was Actually There?
If you're looking for the definitive list of the six men in Joe Rosenthal's photo, here is the final, corrected version as of the latest Marine Corps investigations:
- Harlon Block: Killed on Iwo Jima.
- Harold Keller: Survived the war (misidentified as Rene Gagnon for decades).
- Ira Hayes: Survived the war.
- Harold Schultz: Survived the war (misidentified as John Bradley for decades).
- Franklin Sousley: Killed on Iwo Jima.
- Michael Strank: Killed on Iwo Jima.
It’s worth noting that John Bradley and Rene Gagnon were involved in raising the first flag or helping with the second flag's logistics. They were there. They were heroes. They just weren't the specific bodies captured in that one split-second of Rosenthal's masterpiece.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs
If you want to truly understand the gravity of the US Marines raising the flag, don't just look at the statue in Arlington.
Read "Flags of Our Fathers" with a grain of salt. James Bradley wrote a moving tribute to his father, but as we now know, his father wasn't actually in the photo. It’s still a great look at the war, but the historical accuracy regarding the photo's subjects is outdated.
Visit the National Archives online. You can view the high-resolution scans of the entire sequence of photos Rosenthal took that day. Seeing the "Gung Ho" photo alongside the "Raising" photo makes it very clear why the staging rumors started—and why they were wrong.
Study the Battle of Iwo Jima beyond the photo. The flag raising happened on day four. The battle lasted another month. The most brutal fighting—the Meat Grinder and the Bloody Gorge—happened after the flag went up.
To honor the history, you have to look past the icon and see the dirt, the blood, and the confusion that defined the actual event. The photo is a symbol of victory, but for the men on the ground, it was just another Friday in hell.
The real lesson of the Iwo Jima flag raising isn't about a perfect shot. It's about the fact that despite the mistakes, the misidentifications, and the trauma, the act itself represented a moment of collective will that changed the course of the war.
Check the records at the Marine Corps History Division for the most recent updates on personnel identification, as forensic technology continues to refine our understanding of these WWII archives.