You’ve seen the photo. It’s everywhere. It’s on postage stamps, bronze monuments in Arlington, and in every single history textbook you’ve ever cracked open. Joe Rosenthal’s shot of six men hoisting a heavy pipe into the air atop Mount Suribachi is arguably the most recognizable image of the 20th century. But honestly, most people get the story completely wrong. They think it’s a photo of the moment the battle ended. It wasn't. They think it was staged. It wasn't. They think they know who’s in the photo. For decades, the US Marine Corps didn't even have the names right.
The reality of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima is way messier, bloodier, and more complicated than the polished legend we celebrate every February.
When the 5th Marine Division landed on that volcanic island in 1945, they weren't looking for a photo op. They were looking to survive. Iwo Jima was a literal hellscape of black sand and sulfur. The Japanese defenders weren't on the beaches; they were under them, tucked away in a 11-mile network of tunnels and bunkers. Taking that mountain—Mount Suribachi—was a brutal, vertical slog that cost thousands of lives.
The flag nobody remembers
Everyone talks about "the" flag raising, but there were actually two.
On the morning of February 23, 1945, a 40-man patrol from the 28th Marines scrambled up the mountain. They made it. To signal to the thousands of troops below that the high ground was finally ours, they lashed a small American flag to a length of water pipe. This first flag was tiny—just 54 by 28 inches. When it went up, the island erupted. Ships offshore honked their whistles. Marines on the beach cheered. It was a massive morale boost.
But the brass wanted a bigger flag. Specifically, Colonel Chandler Johnson wanted that first flag saved as a souvenir for the battalion. He ordered a second, much larger flag—brought from a salvage depot at Pearl Harbor—to be sent up.
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Joe Rosenthal, an AP photographer who had been languishing on the beach, heard something was happening on the peak. He started hiking. He almost missed it. By the time he reached the summit, the first flag was already coming down and the second one was going up. He didn't have time to use his viewfinder. He just swung his Speed Graphic camera around, hopped on some rocks to get a better angle, and clicked.
One click. That was it.
The "staged" myth that won't die
If you want to annoy a historian, tell them the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima was a staged photo. This rumor started almost immediately because of a misunderstanding. Later that day, after the "action" shot was taken, Rosenthal gathered a group of Marines for a "gung-ho" shot—a posed picture of them cheering under the flag.
When someone later asked Rosenthal if he had posed the photo, he thought they meant the cheering shot. He said "sure." By the time he realized they were talking about the iconic hoisting image, the rumor had wings.
The truth is evident in the film. If you look at the raw footage captured by Sergeant Bill Genaust, who was standing right next to Rosenthal filming with a 16mm movie camera, you see the movement is fluid. It's frantic. The men are struggling with a heavy, wind-whipped pole. It wasn't a choreographed dance; it was a group of exhausted guys doing a chore.
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Who were those guys, anyway?
For over 70 years, the identities of the men in that photo were considered settled history. Then, a few years ago, some amateur historians started looking at the gear—the buttons, the gaiters, the shadows on the helmets. They realized the Marine Corps had made some massive mistakes.
It turns out that John Bradley, the Navy corpsman long thought to be in the center of the photo (and the subject of the book Flags of Our Fathers), wasn't in the second photo at all. He helped with the first flag. The man in the photo was actually Harold "Pie" Keller.
Then, in 2019, the Marines corrected the record again. For decades, they said Rene Gagnon was the guy in the back. Nope. It was Harold Schultz.
The final, verified list of the six men in the Rosenthal photo:
- Harlon Block (Killed in action six days later)
- Harold Keller (Survived the war)
- Ira Hayes (Survived, but struggled deeply with the fame)
- Harold Schultz (Survived, never told his family he was in the photo)
- Franklin Sousley (Killed in action on Iwo Jima)
- Michael Strank (Killed by "friendly" fire on Iwo Jima)
Think about that. Three of the men who raised that flag never left the island alive. The photo was taken on the fifth day of a 36-day battle. The "victory" the photo seemed to represent was still weeks of slaughter away.
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The weight of the image
The impact of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima back home was seismic. The US government was running out of money for the war. They needed the Seventh War Loan drive to succeed, or the whole machine would grind to a halt. When Rosenthal's photo hit the front pages, it became the perfect propaganda tool—in the best sense of the word.
The three survivors—Gagnon, Hayes, and Bradley (who they thought was in the photo at the time)—were plucked off the front lines and sent on a whirlwind tour of America.
It was weird for them. They felt like frauds. Ira Hayes, a Pima Native American, hated it. He hated being treated like a celebrity for "raising a pole" while his friends were still being blown apart in the Pacific. He eventually spiraled into alcoholism, dying young in 1955. The fame of the photo was, in many ways, its own kind of casualty.
Why we can't look away
Why does this specific image work when thousands of other war photos fade? It's the composition. It’s almost accidental perfection. The diagonal line of the pole creates a sense of forward momentum. The way the men are huddled together suggests a collective effort—you can't see their faces, which makes them universal. They could be anyone. They could be your grandfather or the guy down the street.
It captures the exact moment the tide turned, even if the soldiers didn't know it yet.
What to do with this history
If you're looking to actually understand the nuance of this moment beyond the 4th of July posters, here is how you should approach it:
- Read "The Unknown Flag Raiser" research: Look into the work of Eric Krelle and Stephen Foley. They are the amateur sleuths who used forensic photo analysis to prove the Marine Corps had the wrong names for 70 years. It’s a fascinating look at how "official" history can be wrong.
- Distinguish between the two flags: Always remember that the photo that won the Pulitzer was the second flag. The first flag was the one that actually signaled the end of the mountain fight.
- Visit the Iwo Jima Memorial with new eyes: When you look at the statue in Arlington, realize that the faces are based on the (partially incorrect) identifications from the 1940s. It is a monument to an idea as much as a specific moment in time.
- Watch the Bill Genaust color footage: Finding the color video of the raising puts the Rosenthal photo in context. It strips away the "art" and shows it as a grainy, shaky, real-life event. Genaust, the man who filmed it, was killed in action shortly after and his body was never recovered. He is still on that island.
The story of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima isn't a simple tale of triumph. It’s a story about the confusion of war, the power of media, and how we choose to remember the people who do the heavy lifting. Next time you see the photo, don't just see a symbol. See six exhausted guys who were just trying to get a job done so they could get off a rock in the middle of the ocean.