The American Spectator

Special Report

(Page 3 of 5)

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Then, knowing that this was an important moment that would be photographed, some of the patrol's brass took over.

Platoon Sergeant Thomas, Sergeant Hansen, and Corporal Lindberg converged on the pole. They took the folded flag out and tied it in place as Doc Bradley helped. Lou Lowry documented the proceedings with a steady succession of camera shots. He moved in close, suggested poses, cajoled the boys into self-conscious grins with his patter....As Lowry clicked [his final] exposure, an amazing cacophony arose from the island below and from the ships offshore. Thousands of Marine and Navy personnel had been watching the patrol as they climbed to the volcano's rim. When the small swatch of color fluttered, Iwo Jima was transformed, for a few moments, into Times Square on New Year's Eve. Infantrymen cheered, whistled, and waved their helmets. Ships offshore opened up their deep, honking whistles. Here was the symbol of an impossible dream fulfilled. Here was the manifestation of Suribachi's conquest. Here was the first invader's flag ever planted in four millennia on the territorial soil of Japan.

br> Thus it was Thomas, Hansen, Lindberg, and Bradley who were the first flag raisers, and who deserved some measure of acknowledgement for their valor in making the climb to the top when everyone thought that they would never make it, and for making themselves targets in order to plant the stars and stripes and raise the spirits of the other 70,000 Marines still caught in savage battle.

Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had seen the flag-raising from the shore line and had decided that he wanted the flag as a souvenir. When the pugnacious Col. Chandler Johnson heard about Forrestal's wish his response was, "The hell with that." The flag belonged to the battalion as far as the Colonel was concerned and he decided to secure it as soon as possible. He ordered another, larger, flag to be found with which to replace the original and sent a small detail of men up to the top to make the change.

p>It was long after the cheers had died out following the original flag-raising and no one was paying attention to the five men as they reached the peak and began preparing the replacement flag for the second raising. They were four men from the 2nd Platoon of Easy Company: Ira Hayes, Harlon Block, Franklin Sousley, and their squad leader Mike Strank, in addition to Rene Gagnon, a messenger who carried the new, larger, flag. br> /p>

As Rene handed Mike [Sgt. Strank] the replacement flag, the sergeant decided an explanation was in order.

"Colonel Johnson wants this big flag run up high...so every son of a bitch on this whole cruddy island can see it."

Mike directed Ira and Franklin to look for a length of pipe. He and Harlon started clearing a spot for planting the pole, and Harlon began stacking the stones.

br> In the meantime Lou Lowry was heading down Suribachi after the first flag-raising and met two Marine photographers and a civilian photo-journalist -- Marine Bob Campbell, a still photographer; Sgt. Bill Genaust, a cinematographer; and Joe Rosenthal, working for AP. He told them about the flag-raising and urged them to go up for the impressive views. When they reached the top and saw that the small original flag was about to be replaced by a taller, larger one they started taking pictures -- Genaust movies, and Campbell and Rosenthal still pictures. So the entire scene was well witnessed and recorded. p>As the five men of the flag replacement detail were struggling with the heavy and cumbersome pipe in the high wind that was whipping across the summit of Suribachi, Sgt. Mike Strank called out to Doc Bradley to give them a hand. br> /p>

Mike saw Doc Bradley walking past with a load of bandages in his arms and asked him to come to help. Doc dropped the bandages and moved to the pole, directly between Mike and Harlon.

Rosenthal spotted the movement and grabbed his camera.

Genaust, about three feet from Rosenthal, asked: "I'm not in your way am I, Joe?"

"Oh, no," Rosenthal answered. As he later remembered, "I turned from him and out of the corner of my eye I said, 'Hey, Bill, there it goes!'"...

Rosenthal remembers: "By being polite to each other we both damn near missed the scene. I swung my camera around and held it until I could guess that this was the peak of action, and shot." At that moment all nine muses must have swept down from Olympus and touched Joe Rosenthal's finger to create the iconic photograph of World War II and arguably of the century up to that time -- a picture of such classic beauty and power that it became world famous literally overnight.

And then it was over. The flag was up....Campbell had gotten the shot he was after...Genaust had gotten the footage he wanted...Only Joe Rosenthal was unsure. The AP man didn't even have a chance to glimpse the image in his viewfinder....Within a few more seconds the flagpole was freestanding, the cloth snapping and cracking in the wind....[But] no one paid any attention. It was just a replacement flag. The important flag -- the first one raised that day -- was brought down the mountain and presented to Colonel Johnson, who stored it in the battalion safe. It bore too much historic value for the battalion to be left unguarded atop Suribachi. The replacement flag flew for three weeks, eventually chewed up by strong winds.

br> The AP photo editor on Guam, John Bodkin, was the first to discover Rosenthal's beautiful shot. "He looked at it...shook his head in wonder, and whistled. 'Here's one for all time!'" Without wasting any time he radio-photoed the image to AP headquarters in New York. Within hours it was in newsrooms all over America, and on Sunday, February 25, it appeared in the homes of 25 million readers. The image was so arresting that within weeks it was world famous as the expression of American determination and ultimate triumph.

The news of Iwo Jima since the invasion on February 19 had been so worrisome and troubling, so full of description of savage fighting, that it was not difficult for worried Americans at home to misunderstand this image of young men raising a flag on high ground. It was, to the people back home, a symbol of victorious battle. We had fought on Iwo against insurmountable odds and had prevailed. The battle was over and soon the war would be over. Those faceless men in the image were the warriors who had fought and triumphed against the cruel Japanese. They became heroes instantly in their anonymity. It didn't matter who they were.

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