Battle of Iwo Jima: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:07, 20 March 2007

Revision as of 03:52, 20 March 2007

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Johnson then called for a platoon of Marines to climb Suribachi. With them, he sent a small American flag to fly if they reached the summit. Again, Marines began the ascent, expecting to be ambushed at any moment. And again, the Marines reached the top of Suribachi without incident. Using a length of pipe they found among the wreckage atop the mountain, the Marines hoisted the U.S. flag over Mount Suribachi, the first foreign flag to fly on Japanese soil in centuries.

As the flag went up, [[Secretary of the Navy]] [[James Forrestal]] had just landed on the beach at the foot of Mt. Suribachi. He decided that he wanted the flag as a souvenir. Popular legend has it that Colonel Johnson wanted the flag for himself; in fact, he believed that the flag belonged to the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, who had captured that section of the island. He sent Sergeant Mike StrenkStrank (who was photographed in the Flag Raising picture) to scrounge up a second flag, and sent that one up the volcano to replace the first. As the first flag came down, the second went up, and it was then that [[Associated Press]] photographer [[Joe Rosenthal]] took the famous photograph "[[Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima]]" of the replacement flag being planted on the mountain's summit.

===After Mt. Suribachi===