Marines who raised flag at Iwo Jima

[David Lockmiller]

Marines who raised flag at Iwo Jima


On Feb. 23, 1945, Col. Severance’s battalion commander ordered him to send a patrol to the island’s highest point, 554-foot Mount Suribachi. After a reconnaissance unit encountered little resistance, a 40-man detachment was assigned to take the mountaintop. Its leader, Lt. Harold G. Schrier, carried a 28-by-54-inch American flag.

The Marines fended off gunfire and grenades to reach the summit, then attached the flag to an iron pipe and raised it atop Mount Suribachi. The moment was recorded by Marine Corps photographer Louis Lowery. Marines and Navy sailors were jubilant when they saw Old Glory waving for the first time on Japanese soil.

According to Col. Severance’s recollection, Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal was present at Iwo Jima that day and wanted the flag as a personal memento. A larger flag was obtained from a nearby landing craft, and after about two hours a second unit was deployed to take it up Mount Suribachi.

This time, the Marines were joined by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal and by Marine Corps Sgt. Bill Genaust, who had a film camera. The smaller flag was removed, and a larger, 96-by-56-inch flag was raised in its place.

“I didn’t know they were carrying a second flag,” Rosenthal told the Los Angeles Times in 1985. “I already knew a flag was on top, and I wanted just to see for myself and also take in the view.”

He hurriedly set up his Speed Graphic camera and snapped a single shot at the moment the flag was planted in the ground. The episode lasted only a few seconds, as Genaust’s color film showed. No faces are clearly visible, just the strength and purpose of six Marines, as the flag unfurls on a pole slanting against a backdrop of white clouds.

If Roger could post photograph from the story, that would be great. It is a marvelous historic photograph.