Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

A second and more famous flag-raising occurred three hours later, when a subsequent patrol of the 28th Marines carried a larger “replacement” flag to the summit of Mt. Suribachi. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal was on hand to record the scene. As six marines raised the flagpole, with the flag snapping smartly in the breeze, Rosenthal pressed the shutter button on his camera without even looking through the viewfinder. He sent his undeveloped film roll to Guam, where it was developed by an AP photo editor and sent on to the United States. The hastily snapped photograph, an accidental masterpiece of composition, became the single most iconic image of the Pacific War. Transmitted through copper telephone wires to newsrooms throughout the United States, it appeared simultaneously on hundreds of front pages and magazine covers. Rosenthal received a Pulitzer Prize. The flag-raising was adopted as the thematic showpiece of a national war bonds campaign, and three surviving marines in the photo were recalled to the United States for a publicity tour. The image was re-created as a bronze sculpture at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.