Time - 100 Photographs - The Most Influential Images of All Time - USA (2019)

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It is but a speck of an island 760 miles south of Tokyo,

a volcanic pile that blocked the Allies’ march toward Ja-

pan. The Americans needed Iwo Jima as an air base, but

the Japanese had dug in. U.S. troops landed on February

19, 1945, beginning a month of fighting that claimed the

lives of 6,800 Americans and 21,000 Japanese. On the fifth

day of battle, the Marines captured Mount Suribachi. An

American flag was quickly raised, but a commander called

for a bigger one, in part to inspire his men and demor-

alize his opponents. Associated Press photographer Joe

Rosenthal lugged his bulky Speed Graphic camera to the

top, and as five Marines and a Navy corpsman prepared

to hoist the Stars and Stripes, Rosenthal stepped back to

get a better frame—and almost missed the shot. “The sky

was overcast,” he later wrote of what has become one of the

most recognizable images of war. “The wind just whipped

the flag out over the heads of the group, and at their feet the

disrupted terrain and the broken stalks of the shrubbery

exemplified the turbulence of war.” Two days later Rosen-

thal’s photo was splashed on front pages across the U.S.,

where it was quickly embraced as a symbol of unity in the

long-fought war. The picture, which earned Rosenthal a

Pulitzer Prize, so resonated that it was made into a postage

stamp and cast as a 100-ton bronze memorial.

FLAG RAISING ON IWO JIMA Joe Rosenthal, 1945