The double truth about the photo of Iwo Jima

It is one of the -symbol photographs of the Second World War, but in reality in that February 23, 1945 on Mount Suribachi, on the island of Iwo Jima, two were triggered, a few minutes away from each other . The first was taken by Louis R. Lowerry, the second by Joe Rosenthal: known as Raising the Flag On Iwo Jima and spread by the Associated Press, he would have gone around the world, reproduced on books and beyond, and awarded in 1945 with Pulitzer.

The island defended to the bitter end from the Japanese and a bloodbath in a hostile environment

The volcanic island of Iwo Jima, in the Marianne archipelago, had been attacked by the US troops on February 19th. Just 20 square kilometers, arid, air that kept faith in the name (sulfur island), but strategic position, since it put Japan within the range of action of the American bombers with the support of escort hunting. The B-29 had about 6,000 km of autonomy, but the Mustang stopped at 1,500, and without them the flying superforceces would have been effectively contrasted by zero. The Japanese command had therefore given order to resist the last man; The Imperial Navy, pieces in the end of October 1944 in the battle of Leyte, had no more possibility of barring the step to the Americans on the sea. The US strategists had adopted the so -called “jump of the frog” for the Pacific islands, instead of continuous and systematic landings. Iwo Jima could in no way be overcome: there were aviation fields built by the Japanese and also a radar system that gave the alarm to the motherland. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi could rely on 21,000 soldiers determined to fight until the last in a hostile environment but well known to them, prepared properly with connected tunnels, bunkers, explosive traps, hidden stations and absence of dead areas on which to direct the shot. A lot of determination had been underestimated in the Detachment operation conducted by General Holland Smith at the beginning, which provided for a maximum of ten days of fighting, opened by a terrifying naval bombing, as never before. Then waves of landings, with over70,000 men sucked into a very bloody snillic tactic. Even if the outcome was obvious, one of the decisive battles of the Second World War will end only on March 25, with the total annihilation of the Japanese forces and the American victory, however cost almost 25,000 deaths. Never before then the US losses had been superior to the Japanese ones, and they will never be later. What happened on the island, and the fear that he could repeat himself, removed one of the remaining brakes at the launch of the atomic bomb.

He screams of joy of the soldiers and the sirens of ships to greet stars and stripes in the wind

That Mount Suribachi, who stood 168 meters above sea level, was one of the knots of the battle, was clear from the beginning, and the efforts of the first days were concentrated on it, until February 23, when they arrived At the top of some marines of the 28th Regiment of the 5th Division, after a series of colors of attrition to break the continuity of the Japanese lines. The decisive attack, prepared by the naval and plane bombing, was conducted after a reconnaissance by two patrols of the 2nd battalion of Lieutenant Colonel Chandler Johnson who ordered the advance to about forty soldiers by Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier and also of Plant the stars and stripes of the Missoula transport ship on top. Materially, the flag, positioned on a metal tube, was hoisted after suffocating one last resistance, around 10.20, by Lieutenant Schrier and sergeant Henry Oliver Hansen. The scene had not gone unnoticed to Sergeant Louis R. Lower, photographer of the Marine Corps magazine, who stared at the moment on film, while on the beach the soldiers extended to the cries of joy and off the ships operated on the sirens. That flag was then requested by the secretary of the war navy Vincent Forastal, but Jonhson made sure to replace it with another from another landing ship that was then brought to the Suribachi by some marines. The same road traveled the photographer of the Associated Press Joe Rosenthal and the war correspondent Bill Hippie, the photographer Bob Campbell and the filmoperator Bill Genaust who had learned in command of the battalion of the replacement mission of the flag by Sergeant Michael Strange. Rosenthal took his photo despite the fact that on the road he learned that the original moment had already been set by Lowerry. Six men appear in the shot – five marines and a health assistant – who raise the flag. The scene had been taken up by Genaust, while then Rosenthal and Campbell had taken other photographs of the Marines who cheered in seeing the flag Garre on top of the mountain.

An absolute icon of the Second World War

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima was immediately to be destined to become an iconic image, even if Rosenthal will learn of the extraordinary success only nine days after having made her arrive at the Associated Press who had published her after a handful of hours since she was taken. Popular, reproduced everywhere, on posters, postcards and stamps, immediately became an extraordinary element of propaganda and to feed the signing campaign of the treasure vouchers in support of the war effort. The six soldiers immortalized in the act of raising the flag were immediately sought, but only the corporals of the Marines Harold Keller and Ira Hayes had survived the battle, and the health assistant John Bradley, while Harlon Block, Franklin Sousley and Michael had fallen Strange. Moreover, Block will be confused until 1947 with Hank Hansen, Bradley with Harold Schulz and Keller with René Gagnon until 2019.

From the monument to the Marines Museum to the Eastwood masterpiece film

Photography will become a natural bronze monument in 1954. Hayes, Bradley and Gagnon will post the sculptor Felix De Weldon, while the faces of the three companions will be reconstructed through the photographic images. Both flags hoisted on Suribachi are kept in the National Museum of the Marine Corps of Quantico. Instead, the first photo of Lowerry is almost completely forgotten. The story was in the center in 2006 of the film Flags of Our Fathers, half of the extraordinary cinematographic diptych that director Clint Eastwood dedicated to the battle of Iwo Jima told by the American and Japanese perspective.