Seventy years ago today a photographer with The Associated Press captured one of the most famous images in the history of journalism.
On February 23, 1945, Joe Rosenthal photographed Marines raising a flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
National Archives, Department of the Navy, AP Photographer: Joe Rosenthal, Feb. 23, 1945
Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo appeared on newspaper front pages across the country. Here is an example from the North Carolina newspaper, “The Robesonian.”
You will notice that war correspondent Ernie Pyle‘s column is also on page one.
“….We remember Iwo Jima for two good reasons.
One is that it was the costliest battle in Marine Corps history. Its toll of 6,821 Americans dead, 5,931 of them Marines, accounted for nearly one-third of all Marine Corps losses in all of World War II.
The other is Joe Rosenthal’s picture.
It has been called the greatest photograph of all time. It may well be the most widely reproduced. It served as the symbol for the Seventh War Loan Drive, for which it was plastered on 3.5 million posters. It was used on a postage stamp and on the cover of countless magazines and newspapers. It served as the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va., a symbol forever of the valor and sacrifices of the U.S. Marines.
As a photograph, it derives its power from a simple, dynamic composition, a sense of momentum and the kinetic energy of six men straining toward a common goal, which for one man has slipped just out of grasp. ‘It has every element. … It has everything,’ marveled Eddie Adams, a former AP photographer who took another picture that helped sum up a war — one of a South Vietnamese police chief executing a suspect.
Of Rosenthal’s picture, he added: ‘It’s perfect: The position, the body language. … You couldn’t set anything up like this — it’s just so perfect….'”
— “Photos: Joe Rosenthal and Iwo Jima”
Plog: Photo Blogs from the Denver Post, February 1995
In addition to the flag-raising image, this video includes other Joe Rosenthal Iwo Jima photographs.
(See also: Marines TV video about the photograph)
Following is a trailer for the 2006 movie, “Flags of Our Fathers,” a film based on the James Bradley and Ron Powers book of the same name.
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