Flag Raising On Mt. Suribachi - 23 February 1945

This Day In U.S. Military History ^

[ConorMacNessa]

Seventy Years Ago Today
February 23, 1945, Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima

From This Day In U.S. Military History:

During the bloody Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines take the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak and most strategic position, and raise the U.S. flag.

"Marine photographer Louis Lowery was with them and recorded the event. American soldiers fighting for control of Suribachi’s slopes cheered the raising of the flag, and several hours later more Marines headed up to the crest with a larger flag. Joe Rosenthal, a photographer with the Associated Press, met them along the way and recorded the raising of the second flag along with a motion-picture cameraman. Rosenthal took three photographs atop Suribachi. The first, which showed five Marines and one Navy corpsman struggling to hoist the heavy flag pole, became the most reproduced photograph in history and won for him a Pulitzer Prize. The accompanying motion-picture footage attests to the fact that the picture was not posed. Of the other two photos, the second was similar to the first but less affecting, and the third was a group picture of 18 soldiers smiling and waving for the camera. Many of these men, including three of the six soldiers seen raising the flag in the famous Rosenthal photo, were killed before the conclusion of the Battle for Iwo Jima in late March. In early 1945, U.S. military command sought to gain control of the island of Iwo Jima in advance of the projected aerial campaign against the Japanese home islands. Iwo Jima, a tiny volcanic island located in the Pacific about 700 miles southeast of Japan, was to be a base for fighter aircraft and an emergency-landing site for bombers. On February 19, 1945, after three days of heavy naval and aerial bombardment, the first wave of U.S. Marines stormed onto Iwo Jima’s inhospitable shores. The Japanese garrison on the island numbered 22,000 heavily entrenched men. Their commander, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, had been expecting an Allied invasion for months and used the time wisely to construct an intricate and deadly system of underground tunnels, fortifications, and artillery that withstood the initial Allied bombardment. By the evening of the first day, despite incessant mortar fire, 30,000 U.S. Marines commanded by General Holland Smith managed to establish a solid beachhead. During the next few days, the Marines advanced inch by inch under heavy fire from Japanese artillery and suffered suicidal charges from the Japanese infantry. Many of the Japanese defenders were never seen and remained underground manning artillery until they were blown apart by a grenade or rocket, or incinerated by a flame thrower. While Japanese kamikaze flyers slammed into the Allied naval fleet around Iwo Jima, the Marines on the island continued their bloody advance across the island, responding to Kuribayashi’s lethal defenses with remarkable endurance. On February 23, the crest of 550-foot Mount Suribachi was taken, and the next day the slopes of the extinct volcano were secured. By March 3, U.S. forces controlled all three airfields on the island, and on March 26 the last Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima were wiped out. Only 200 of the original 22,000 Japanese defenders were captured alive. More than 6,000 Americans died taking Iwo Jima, and some 17,000 were wounded."

[nascarnation]

Bike Week at Daytona isn’t until March, so maybe something else.

http://www.daytonachamber.com/daytonabikeweek/search.cfm

[left that other site]

I don’t know about Panama City...I am nearly 500 miles away to the south.

There wasn’t anything today in our neck of the woods, but the last few weekends have been VERY busy! Mandatory runs, Charity Runs, Memorial Runs, etc.

[Squantos]

Thank you for reminding us.......life sometimes makes us look forward at what’s to come, than remembering and honoring those that brought us here.......

Stay safe...

[RJS1950]

I remember when I first read the story and saw the Lowery shots in 1972. I was a Marine Sgt and it changed my perspective on the workings of media and its effect on morale.

The Rosenthal shot was the perfect shot and I understand why it gained the notoriety it did. What was sad, was that most of the original raisers went immediately back into the battle and were killed. It wasn’t in the best interest of maintaining national morale to put out anything about the original raising and the men involved but after it was all over, to ignore it entirely, was a slap in the face of those guys who fought their way up that ridge to raise the first flag.

I served with a MGySgt who saw the raising of the first flag. For the Marines on the beach, that was the morale builder and he didn’t know anything about the second one until after the fighting was over.

The Iwo battle was hard fought example of real heroism for all involved in the campaign.

[RightSpirit]

My uncle, now deceased, was a 19 year old Marine Corps linesman from Orono, Maine who clawed his way to the top of Mount Suribachi laying telephone lines to establish a command post at the summit. He had his rifle in one hand and the wire laying device in the other.

He was exhausted emotionally and physically when he got to the top and says he laid there on the ground as he watched them raise the flag both times. The bullets were still flying around from Japanese hidden in caves on the mountain. I can not remember if he caught the shrapnel in his back and leg there or at Okinawa.

He told me about his experiences in WWII when I was young pre-teen in the 50s and he had a visit from a Marine buddy who was a Medal of Honor winner. That made me curious and I asked him what the war was like. He also went with the Army of Occupation to Japan before coming home. He brought home to my mother, his little sister, Japanese dolls and a silk kimono.

Another Marine gave my uncle his bronze miniature of the Marine Corps Monument as he was dying in the VA Hospital in Florida. He just wept silently when it was presented to him. Thank you for this reminder of this anniversary. “Uncommon valor was a common virtue.” So true of that generation. Remarkably this great country still breeds these kinds of young, unsung heroes. Perhaps that will be our salvation.

[SunkenCiv]

Of the six in the Rosenthal shot, three died on Iwo. Rosenthal took the famous photo during the second flag-raising, about three hours after the first. I think only one of those present at the first flag-raising died on Iwo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Lindberg

[luvie]

Hard to believe it was so long ago and far away. But it is.

God always bless our heroes!

[luvie]

God Bless our Heroes!
[borrowed...but I liked the size of this one! :) ]