Gerard St. John: Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima

It is a magnificent photograph. Look at it closely. It is the fifth day of the 36-day Battle of Iwo Jima; one four-hundredth of a second frozen in time.  

There is a natural balance of geometric shapes. The flagpole divides the rectangular frame into two triangles relatively equal in size.  

The pyramid-like bulk of six Marines at the base of the pole forms another triangle, this one in the center of the photo. The Marines are focused on the task at hand, raising the flag.  

No weapons are evident. No one is looking at the camera. Our eyes are drawn up the pole to the flag that seems to be unfurling in the wrong direction – in front of the pole, powered by a strong ocean breeze and creating another triangle — one of stars and stripes. The background lighting is perfect. It is noontime. The sun is almost directly overhead, giving the Marines a statuary appearance. Nothing suggests the bloody battle that is raging below. None of the six men in the photo makes any claim to heroic status. It is the image itself that grabs your attention. 

Could it have been posed?  Not likely, unless you can control the sun and the wind, the stars and the stripes; and do it within one four-hundredth of a second, the shutter speed of Joe Rosenthal’s camera.

It is a work of art.

The photo was taken by Joe Rosenthal, a diminutive 5’5” man who was rejected for military service due to his weak eyesight. He was a civilian working as a photographer for the Associated Press. Rosenthal’s camera was a Speed Graphic, the workhorse of news photographers in that era. It is a “two-hand” camera with a viewfinder on the top. Rosenthal almost missed the shot. He was trying to get solid footing when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. There was no time to engage the viewfinder. Instinctively, Rosenthal pointed the camera and snapped the shutter. The timing was perfect – one four-hundredth of a second perfect. The result was the only Pulitzer Prize in Joe Rosenthal’s life of photography.

Rosenthal’s undeveloped film was packaged together with the undeveloped film of other combat photographers on Iwo Jima, and flown that night by seaplane approximately 800 miles to Guam where the film was developed, printed, and reviewed. Up to that point, no one had seen any image from the film taken that day. But the technicians on Guam who developed and printed the Rosenthal photo knew immediately that it was special. The image was wired to the United States and just two days later it was published in all the major newspapers in America.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was impressed. He ordered that the six men who raised the flag be transferred back to the United States. But who were they? On Iwo Jima, staff officers, most of whom had not yet seen Rosenthal’s photo, took their best guess.

They identified:

1. Sgt. Henry Hansen, on the right at the base of the pole;
2. PFC Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian, at the left end with arms upraised.
3. Middle group: Pharmacist Mate John Bradley; Sgt. Michael Strank; PFC Rene Gagnon; and PFC Franklin Sousley.

Roosevelt’s transfer order was quickly carried out – but only three of the men named as flag raisers were still alive: Bradley, Hayes, and Gagnon. 

It was not long before the best guesses of the command staff proved to be wrong. Within two years, it was determined that Henry Hansen had been misidentified. That was really Cpl. Harlon Block at the base of the pole. Block’s mother disputed the identification of Hansen from the beginning. Small details proved that she was correct. An examination of all the photos taken on Mt. Suribachi that day show significant differences in the uniforms worn by Hansen and by Block. Hansen was trained as a paratrooper and wore his utility trousers bloused above his boots, near the knee. Block wore his utility trousers in the traditional full-length fashion. Other photographs taken that same day showed Hansen wearing the paratrooper style trousers and Block wearing the traditional length.  

Several years ago, historians studied enhanced images of the photos taken on Mt. Suribachi that afternoon in February 1945, and concluded that the person identified as Corpsman John Bradley was really Cpl. Harold Henry Schultz. The combat tools on his utility belt were not things that would be carried by a corpsman. Just last year it was determined that the person identified as Rene Gagnon was Cpl. Harold Keller. Gagnon appears in another photo taken at exactly the same time as the flag raising, but about thirty yards away from Rosenthal’s location.  

In the final analysis, three of the six flag raisers were misidentified. However, it is not the identities of the flag raisers that make the photo special.  It is the balance, the light, the attention to duty and the miraculous snap of the camera lens at precisely the right instant – one four-hundredth of a second.  

It is a work of art.

Gerry St. John is a retired lawyer who lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He was graduated from St. Joseph’s College and Temple University School of Law. Between these educational endeavors, he spent nearly four years in the United States Marine Corps, most of it in Camp Pendleton, California, and in the Far East during the Cuban Missile Crisis. For more than 45 years was a civil trial lawyer, and for nine years a member of the adjunct faculty at Saint Joseph’s University.