The Photograph
of the American Flag Raising on Mount Suribachi

“What difference does it make who took the picture?
I took it, but the Marines took Iwo Jima.”

So wrote Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal (1911 – 2006) in the attached article printed ten years after snapping the world famous image of the four U.S. Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the battle for Iwo Jima. In five pages, he explains the remarkable impact that the photo had on the American psyche as well as the popular culture on the American home front, both during the war and afterward. Rosenthal was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for capturing on film one of the greatest events of W.W. II and briefly explains that the three surviving men who participated in the event were thrust into fame for years afterward.

Click here to read additional articles about the war correspondents of the Second World War.

Additionally, this site has articles about the photographers of W.W. II, as well.