Monday marks 70 years since Joe Rosenthal captured the iconic picture of five U.S. Marines and a Navy sailor raising an American flag over the battle-scarred Japanese island of Iwo Jima.
The image was so inspiring that, by 1945 standards, it went viral. It triggered a wave of national hope that Japanese forces would soon be crushed and peace was near. It spurred millions of Americans to buy war bonds to keep the nation on solid financial footing. Basically, this simple photo was so powerful it helped win World War II.
But Rosenthal was just one of several cameramen on the island’s Mount Suribachi that day. Their images reveal the entire story behind the famous picture. They provide clues into the anger and ugly rumors over whether the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo was staged.
Hal Buell, a former executive newsphoto editor at the Associated Press, knew Rosenthal. Buell shared with CNN the inside story surrounding the photo.
“The most surprising thing to me is … that even today there are many people who believe that the picture was posed,” Buell said. “It still comes up over and over again.”
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On February 23, 1945, Rosenthal, an AP photographer covering the battle for Iwo Jima, had heard Marines were headed up the mountain. He decided to make the climb and see what was going on.
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Too late. Damage done. Any journalist knows that “the correction never catches up with the error,” Buell said. “Joe spent the rest of his life defending what was alleged as a ‘phony picture.’ ”
It took a special meeting in Washington between military officials and editors at Life magazine and AP to put the controversy to rest.
“They came to the conclusion that the picture was not posed,” Buell said. “It was an authentic news picture of the second flag being raised.”
Years later, Rosenthal and Lowery settled their differences. During a Marine event somewhere in the Carolinas, they reunited in a hotel room where they shared a bottle of bourbon, Buell said. Afterward, Lowery acknowledged Rosenthal’s picture was not posed.
“He said it was an honest-to-God picture and they remained friends,” Buell said. “In fact, Joe attended Lou Lowery’s funeral when he died.”
Before Rosenthal died in 2006 at age 94, he told Buell he never got over the controversy. It always annoyed him — “the same charges and allegations over and over,” Buell said.
The picture has become almost an unofficial symbol of the Marine Corps and World War II in the Pacific. The Marines embraced it by transforming the photo into a memorial statue in Arlington, Virginia. Hollywood movies have been made about the flag-raising. The U.S. Postal Service featured it on a stamp. Even the shape of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, in Triangle, Virginia, was inspired by Rosenthal’s photo.
Buell said that as Rosenthal looked back on his life, he was glad his photo came to represent the bravery and sacrifice of the men he called “my Marines.”
