Joe Rosenthal: Raising The Flag On Iwo Jima

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFO

Though the career of Joe Rosenthal spanned more than 50 years, he is best known for a single image: Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. The photograph of six men on a tiny island in the Pacific was immediately a symbol of victory and heroism, and became one of the most famous, most reproduced and even most controversial photographs of all time.

Rosenthal was born October 9, 1911 in Washington D.C. to Russian Jewish immigrants. During the Great Depression, he traveled to San Francisco to live with his brother and look for work. He developed an interest in photography, and his hobby soon led to employment as a reporter photographer for the Newspaper Enterprise Association. …show more content…
Where he was assigned to his next campaign in the pacific ocean. He had taken photos of the fighting in Guam and Peleliu before finding himself on the island of Iwo Jima. In order to attack Tokyo and other areas of Japan, the U.S. armed services needed a base on Iwo Jima. When the first wave of soldiers began the assault on the island, they were met with 21,000 Japanese soldiers. The battle had waged for two days in February of 1945, when the Marines overtook a hill. The commander decided to raise a flag. Four marines raised a small U.S flag to commemorate the …show more content…
As the battle for Iwo Jima continued, Rosenthal's picture raced across the United States. The image of the flag raising came during a time when many U.S. citizens were weary of the fighting. According to the London Times , "The uncannily expressive perfection of the photograph composition—the small team of soldiers straining heroically to raise the Stars and Stripes amid the shell-blasted wreckage of the Japanese hilltop redoubt—was not lost on all those who saw it …" The image became a symbol of courage and unity to the United States. It energized the nation. However, on Iwo Jima, half of the flag raisers had lost their lives. In all, more than 6,000 soldiers died on Iwo Jima. The remaining three flag raisers were sent
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