Iwo Jima is a tiny volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean, barely 8 square miles of jagged rock and ash. In early 1945, it became the site of one of the deadliest battles in Marine Corps history. The fight lasted 35 days, from February 19 to March 26, 1945, and left thousands of men dead on both sides. But the battle also produced one of the most recognized photographs in American history—an image that the U.S. government quickly turned into a tool of war propaganda.
Iwo Jima is 650 miles from Tokyo, the US could launch its attack on the Japanese capital.
Iwo Jima sat roughly halfway between Japan and the Mariana Islands, where American bombers were already staging attacks on the Japanese mainland. Japan used the island’s airfields to track incoming U.S. bombers and scramble interceptors. For American planners, capturing Iwo Jima would eliminate that early warning system, provide a forward base for fighter escorts, and give crippled B-29s a place to make emergency landings instead of ditching in the open ocean. The island’s military value was clear to both sides, which is exactly why the Japanese had spent years fortifying it.
While U.S. B-24 (Liberators) soar high above the Japanese airbase on Iwo Jima, bombs dropped from the planes explode on the island, 1944.
Japanese commander General Tadamichi Kuribayashi had overseen the construction of roughly 11 miles of tunnels and hundreds of reinforced bunkers cut directly into the island’s volcanic rock. His strategy was not to stop the Americans at the beach, but to let them land and then destroy them from hidden, fortified positions. American commanders planned a massive pre-invasion bombardment to break these defenses. For weeks, Navy ships and Air Force bombers pounded the island. When Marines finally landed, they discovered the bombardment had done far less damage than expected.
Near a truck on an Iwo Jima road in Japan, Jap soldiers with field packs scatter for cover, as an American plane comes in low to strafe the enemy during pre-invasion softening-up, 1945.
On the morning of February 19, 1945, approximately 70,000 Marines began their assault on Iwo Jima’s black sand beaches. The first waves came ashore under deceptively light fire. Then the Japanese opened up from their concealed positions, and the beach turned into a killing ground. Marines sank into the volcanic sand, unable to dig effective foxholes while machine gun fire, mortar rounds, and artillery tore through their ranks. Many were killed or seriously wounded before they even cleared the shoreline.
U.S. Marines aboard a landing craft head for the beaches of Iwo Jima Island, Japan, during World War II, 1945.Coast Guardsman Charles R. Roth, leads the singing of hymns on an LST headed for Iwo Jima, the day before the invasion, 1945.
The chaos of the landing was unlike anything most Marines had experienced. Amtracs—amphibious tracked vehicles—were hit directly by Japanese fire, wounding or killing the men inside before they could reach shore. Coast Guard crews pulled casualties from the water while others continued pushing toward the beach.
Wounded when Jap fire made a direct hit on an Amtrac, a Marine is transferred by Coast Guardsmen to a landing craft off the flaming shore of Iwo Jima, Japan on D-Day, 1945.Two U.S. Marines, slumped in death, lie where they fell on Iwo Jima, among the first victims of Japanese gunfire as the American conquest of the strategic Japanese Volcano Island begins, 1945.
Once inland, Marines fought for every yard of ground. The terrain—broken gullies, rocky ridges, and heavily fortified caves—gave Japanese defenders a constant advantage. Flame throwers were among the few weapons effective against the bunkers and tunnel entrances. Marines moved from position to position, burning out defenders rather than simply shooting at concrete walls.
Two U.S. Marines directing flame throwers at Japanese defenses that block the way to Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi, 1945.This is a photo of a U.S. Marine communicator, burrowed in a shallow foxhole, calling for artillery support to silence enemy mortars in Iwo Jima, Japan, during World War II, 1945.
Casualties on both sides mounted rapidly. Navy doctors and medical corpsmen set up aid stations in gullies and shell craters, performing surgery under fire. Stretcher bearers carried the wounded to evacuation boats on the beach, often under continued enemy fire.
U.S. Navy doctors and medical corpsmen treat wounded U.S. Marines at an aid station established in a gully on Iwo Jima in the Pacific, Japan, 1945.While a U.S. corpsman administers ether, Navy doctors operate to remove shrapnel from the abdomen of a wounded leatherneck at the Fourth Marine Division evacuation hospital in Iwo Jima, Japan, 1945.Corpsmen carry a wounded Marine on a stretcher to an evacuation boat on the beach at Iwo Jima while other Marines huddle in a foxhole during the invasion of the Japanese Volcano Island stronghold, 1945. A search team is on the island looking for a cave where the Marine combat photographer who filmed the famous World War II flag raising is believed to have been killed in battle nine days later, military officials said Friday, June 22, 2007.
On February 23, 1945—four days into the battle—a Marine patrol reached the summit of Mount Suribachi, the extinct volcano that dominated the island’s southern tip. They raised a small American flag. A few hours later, a larger flag was brought up and raised in its place. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal was there for that second raising. His photograph of six Marines hoisting the flag became one of the most reproduced images of World War II.
The picture won the Pulitzer Prize, 1945.
Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize winning photo of the flag raising on Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, was originally misidentified by military sources. Originally identified, from left, in this vintage graphic: Pfc. Franklin R. Sousley; Pfc. Ira Hayes; Sgt. Michael Strank; Pharmacist’s Mate 2nd Class John H. Bradley; Pfc. Rene A. Gagnon; Sgt. Henry O. Hansen. The Marine at far right was later correctly identified as Cpl. Harlon Block, not Hansen, 1945.
The six men in the photograph were initially misidentified by military sources. One of them, Sergeant Michael Strank, was killed in action on Iwo Jima shortly after the photograph was taken. Three of the six men in the image died before the battle ended. The identity of the Marine at the far right was officially corrected years later—Corporal Harlon Block, not Sergeant Henry O. Hansen as originally reported.
Marine Sgt. Michael Strank, reported killed in action on Iwo Jima, was identified as one of the marines shown raising the stars and stripes on Mount Suribachi, 1945.
Joe Rosenthal’s photograph won the Pulitzer Prize and was immediately recognized as something extraordinary. The U.S. government saw its value beyond journalism. President Truman invited the three survivors of the flag-raising to the White House, where they received the first poster of the new 7th War Loan drive—built entirely around Rosenthal’s image. The photograph appeared on posters, in advertisements, and in recruitment campaigns. It was used to sell war bonds and to convince the American public that the sacrifices being made in the Pacific were leading toward a victory worth having.
With the three survivors of the famed Mt. Suribachi flag-raising incident as his guests, President Truman gets the first of the new 7th war loan posters, based on Joe Rosenthal’s epic Iwo Jima photograph, at the White House, 1945.Joe Rosenthal, AP photographer, with Bob Campbell, a Marine, in front of a large Japanese gun, 1945.
Rosenthal himself was celebrated with a string of awards and honors throughout 1945. He received the Graflex Diamond Award during a television broadcast, a plaque at a Communion breakfast in New York, a scroll from the Press Photographers Association of New York, and was feted at a dinner in Washington by the AP staff. His single image had reshaped how Americans perceived the war in the Pacific.
Joe Rosenthal, Associated Press photographer whose shot of the flag raising on Iwo Jima has become a classic, received further recognition when he was awarded the Graflex Diamond Award during an appearance on the “We, The People” television broadcast, 1945.Joe Rosenthal, Associated Press photographer who took the famed Iwo Jima flag raising picture, is awarded a plaque at a Communion breakfast in New York, 1945.Joe Rosenthal, Associated Press staff photographer, receives a scroll from Joe Costa on behalf of the Press Photographers Association of New York in a ceremony commending him for his photo of the flag raising on Iwo Jima, in New York, 1945.Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, whose Iwo Jima Mount Suribachi flag-raising picture has made pictorial history, and Howard L. Kany, Washington news photo editor, enjoy a dinner in Joe’s honor, given during his visit to Washington by the AP Washington NewsPhoto staff, 1945.AP photographer Joe Rosenthal, holds a wood carving depicting his famous photo of the flag raising at Iwo Jima, 1945.
While the flag-raising photo dominated the home front, the battle itself ground on with no sign of slowing. Japanese soldiers continued fighting from tunnels and caves across the island. Prisoners were rarely taken—the Japanese fought to the death in overwhelming numbers. The few who were captured alive were brought in under close guard.
The first Japanese prisoner to be taken on Iwo Jima, Japan, is dragged from shell hole, 1945.Japanese soldier is seen on Iwo Jima, Japan, edge of Motoyama Airfield No. 1, 1945.Three Japanese prisoners of war are shown aboard a U.S. Navy vessel in Japan, 1945.While his buddies stand around to watch, a Third Division Marine brings in a Japanese prisoner, one of the few enemy taken alive during the fighting on Iwo Jima, Japan, 1945.Marine stretcher bearers place a Japanese prisoner on a litter to be carried to the rear, while another Marine covers a cave entrance with his automatic rifle at northern Iwo Jima, Japan, 1945.
The dead were everywhere. Japanese soldiers lay in shell craters and along roadsides. Marines prepared graves in division cemeteries near the beaches where the landings had begun. The rows of white markers grew longer with each passing day of fighting.
The booted feet of a dead Japanese soldier, protrude from beneath a mound of earth on Iwo Jima during the American invasion of the Japanese Volcano Island stronghold, 1945.Two Japanese soldiers lay dead from the invasion armada seen in the background in Japan, 1945.This is a photo of U.S. Marines preparing graves in the cemetery of the third and Fourth Marine Divisions for their buddies who died in taking the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during World War II, 1945.U.S. Marines dig graves in the Fifth Marine Division cemetery on Iwo Jima, Japan, for the shrouded bodies of their buddies, 1945.White markers designate the final resting place for hundreds of Third and Fourth Marine Division fighters, who died during invasion of Iwo Jima in World War II, in this cemetery located near the beach where the U.S. Marines first established a beachhead, 1945.
Men found small rituals amid the violence. A Marine chaplain conducted communion services on the island. Others sang hymns the day before the invasion on troop ships heading toward the fight. Combat cameramen set up headquarters 12 feet underground in former Japanese bunkers near a captured airstrip. Life on Iwo Jima, for those who survived each day, continued in whatever form it could.
U.S. Marines receive communion from a Marine chaplain on Iwo Jima, the largest of the Japanese Volcano Islands, 1945.Twelve feet below the surface near an Iwo Jima airstrip, Japan, three 7th AAF combat cameramen establish their headquarters in a former Japanese underground quarters made of a wrecked bomber fuselage and stone blocks, 1945.
By the time organized Japanese resistance ended on March 26, 1945, approximately 6,800 American servicemen had been killed and more than 19,000 wounded. Of the roughly 18,000 Japanese defenders on the island, fewer than 300 survived. The airfields that had justified the entire operation were already in use before the battle officially ended—B-29 Superfortresses made emergency landings on Iwo Jima’s runways throughout the fighting.
A B-29 Superfortress rests on a dirt mound after it crash landed with two engines working at Iwo Jima, Japan, during World War II, 1945.U.S. Marines of the 5th Division pose with captured Japanese battle flags, at Iwo Jima, 1945.
Back home, the photograph continued to expand beyond newspapers. A 50-foot statue reproducing Rosenthal’s image was unveiled to crowds of onlookers. Decades later, the image was recreated for film, and the United States Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia—modeled directly on the photograph—became one of the most visited monuments in the country.
Hundreds look on during the unveiling of the 50-foot statue of the Iwo Jima flag-raising, a reproduction of AP photographer Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize winning picture, 1945.In the movie reproduction of the flag raising scene on Iwo Jima, Capt. H.G. Schrier, left, who actually carried the flag up Mt. Surabachi, hands the flag to John Wayne, 1975.The United States Marine Corps War Memorial, better known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, is seen in Arlington, Va., 2011.
The survivors carried the battle with them for the rest of their lives. Decades after the fighting ended, veterans returned to Iwo Jima. In 2010, American veteran Franklin Hobbs met Chie Takekawa, whose father had been killed on the same island where Hobbs had fought. The two held a framed letter and a photograph at a press conference in Tokyo—two people connected by the same 35 days of violence that had consumed so many others. Rosenthal himself lived until 2006, long enough to see his photograph become a permanent part of American memory.
Mt. Suribachi, is seen from Invasion Beach on Iwo Jima, Japan, 2013.Photographer Joe Rosenthal poses for a photo at the New Pisa Bar and restaurant, 1994.Former U.S. soldier fighting on Iwo Jima during the World War II, Franklin Hobbs, right, and Chie Takekawa, whose father was killed in the same battle, hold a framed letter and a photo of her sister during a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo, 2010.Battle-wise Marines use a sling made of enemy puttees to improvise a sling for the removal of a Japanese soldier’s body from a dugout on Iwo Jima, Japan, 1945.With his hands in the air, the first of 20 Japanese emerges from an Iwo Jima cave, 1945.A U.S. Marine approaches a Japanese soldier on Iwo Jima, Japan, during World War II, 1945.U.S. Marines with a coast guard combat photographer found crouching in a listening post dug in Iwo Jima’s coffee grounds sands, Japan, 1945.Japanese 3 wheel motorcycle repaired by U.S. Marines for own use. Photographed as action continued on Iwo Jima, Japan, 1945.The battleship USS New York, veteran of the Okinawa and Iwo Jima campaigns, returns with World War II veterans at San Pedro, Ca., 1945.
