February 23, 1945. Twelve hours into the worst bloodbath of the Pacific. A small patrol of Marines fought to the top of an extinct volcano on a tiny island most Americans had never heard of, and ran a flag up a length of Japanese water pipe. A few hours later, a second, larger flag went up in its place. A photographer named Joe Rosenthal happened to be there. The photo he took on Mount Suribachi has done more for American morale than any image in our history.
The short version
- The famous photo shows the second flag raised on Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945, not the first, caught by Joe Rosenthal in a single unposed frame.
- All six flag raisers were Marines: Strank, Block, Sousley, Hayes, Schultz, and Keller. Three of them died on Iwo Jima.
- The image sold $26.3 billion in war bonds and became the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington.
- The flag went up on day five of a 36-day battle that cost roughly 6,800 American lives.
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What the Iwo Jima Flag Raising Actually Was
The Iwo Jima flag raising is the moment six United States servicemen lifted a 96-by-56-inch American flag on Mount Suribachi, the 554-foot volcano on the southern tip of Iwo Jima, on the afternoon of February 23, 1945. Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press caught the second of two flag raisings on a single press camera frame. The shutter clicked while the flag was still on its way up. He almost missed the shot.
The image ran on the front page of nearly every Sunday paper in America before the men in it were even off the island. It won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, and three of the six men in the picture never made it home.
★ Iwo Jima Flag Raising at a Glance
| Date | February 23, 1945 |
| Location | Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands |
| Photographer | Joe Rosenthal, Associated Press |
| Number of raisings | Two (the photo is the second) |
| Battle of Iwo Jima | Feb 19 to Mar 26, 1945 (36 days) |
| Total American casualties | ~26,000, including 6,800 killed |
Why Iwo Jima Mattered Enough to Take
Iwo Jima sits about 750 miles south of Tokyo. By early 1945, B-29 bombers flying against the Japanese mainland were getting shot up the entire way home, and the island's radar station warned Tokyo of every raid. Take it, and the math flipped: crippled B-29s could belly-land there, P-51 Mustangs could fly escort from a closer base, and the radar went silent. Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi knew it too, and turned eight square miles of black volcanic rock into one of the most prepared defenses of the war: 11 miles of tunnels, 1,500 underground rooms, hidden artillery, and no plan to surrender.
From this summit, Japanese gunners could see the entire American landing beach below, which is why taking it was the invasion's first priority.
D-Day was February 19, 1945. Three Marine divisions hit the black-sand beaches and sank to their ankles in volcanic ash. The defenders held their fire until the beach was packed, then opened up from caves and pillboxes that had survived 72 days of pre-invasion bombing. The first day alone cost 2,420 Americans.
The Climb to the Summit
By the morning of February 23, Suribachi was cut off and its slopes had been bombed and shelled for four days. Lieutenant Colonel Chandler Johnson sent a 40-man patrol up around 8:00 a.m., handing Lieutenant Harold Schrier a small folded American flag with the order: "If you get to the top, put it up." The patrol expected an ambush that never came. They reached the summit, lashed the flag to a length of Japanese water pipe, and raised it.
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10:20 Approximate time the first flag went up on February 23, 1945. Battleships and Marines below cheered, blew horns, and fired into the air. |
That first flag was small, about 28 by 54 inches, and from the beach you could barely see it. Word came down that a bigger one was needed, for visibility and to keep the first as a battalion trophy. Around noon, a second patrol carried up a 96-by-56-inch flag pulled from a Navy landing ship.
The Second Flag Raising and the Photo
The second flag was bigger, the pole was heavier, and six men did the work. Rosenthal was stacking rocks for a better camera angle when a Marine shouted that the flag was going up. He swung his Speed Graphic up, framed without looking through the viewfinder, and pressed the shutter. He had no idea if he had gotten the picture, and assumed a posed shot he took afterward would be the keeper.
When the AP editor on Guam saw the developed action frame, he wired one word: "perfect." The image hit U.S. papers two days later, and the Treasury Department rode it to $26.3 billion in war bonds during the 7th War Loan drive, the most successful of the war.
Three of the six men in the frame were dead within a month of the shutter click. The photo outlived them all.
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The Six Men in the Photo
For decades the roster was a matter of dispute and bad record-keeping. The Marine Corps settled it in 1947, then revised two identifications in 2016 and a third in 2019 after deep photo analysis. The confirmed list:
| 1 | Sergeant Michael Strank, USMC. Czechoslovak-born, 25, the senior Marine in the photo. Killed March 1, 1945, six days after the raising, by an American shell that fell short. |
| 2 | Corporal Harlon Block, USMC. 21, from Weslaco, Texas. Killed by a Japanese mortar the same day as Strank. He was misidentified as Sergeant Hank Hansen for nearly two years. |
| 3 | Private First Class Franklin Sousley, USMC. 19, a tobacco-farm kid from Hilltop, Kentucky, and the youngest of the six. Killed March 21, 1945, three days before the island was declared secure. |
| 4 | Corporal Ira Hayes, USMC. 22, a Pima from the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. Survived, and died of exposure in 1955 at age 32. |
| 5 | Private First Class Harold Schultz, USMC. 19, from Detroit. Survived. Identified in 2016, replacing John Bradley in the official record. He never told even his family. |
| 6 | Corporal Harold "Pie" Keller, USMC. 23, from Brooklyn, Iowa. Survived. Identified in 2019, replacing Rene Gagnon. Like Schultz, he almost never spoke about the moment. |
For decades, Navy Corpsman John Bradley was thought to be in the photo, and his son's bestseller "Flags of Our Fathers" was built around him. Bradley helped raise the first flag that morning and earned a Navy Cross on Iwo Jima, but he was not in the famous second-raising frame.
The Real Cost of Iwo Jima
The flag went up on day five. The island was not declared secure until March 26, 1945, and the numbers are still hard to read.
Admiral Chester Nimitz wrote the line now carved on the memorial: "Uncommon valor was a common virtue." It is one of the few times a single sentence does the men justice.
The Memorial, the Bond Drive, and the Aftermath
The three raisers who survived never wanted to talk about the photo. The country wanted them to. The Treasury pulled Ira Hayes, John Bradley, and Rene Gagnon (who carried the second flag up but was not in the frame) off Iwo Jima for a city-to-city bond tour. Hayes hated every stop of it and asked to be sent back to his unit while his friends were still fighting. Eventually they did.
The Marine Corps War Memorial at Arlington Ridge, Virginia, dedicated November 10, 1954, is Felix de Weldon's bronze recreation of the photograph. The base lists every Marine engagement since 1775, and a real American flag flies from its 60-foot pole 24 hours a day by Presidential proclamation.
What People Get Wrong About the Photo
MYTH 01
"It was staged."
It was the second of two real raisings, both ordered by the same battalion commander. Rosenthal posed a separate photo afterward, but the famous image is a single unrehearsed press frame caught mid-raise.
MYTH 02
"The flag raising ended the battle."
The flag went up on day five of a 36-day battle. The bloodiest fighting was still ahead, and Americans were still being killed a full month after the photograph ran back home.
MYTH 03
"The survivors came home and lived happily ever after."
Ira Hayes died of exposure at 32. Harold Schultz never told his family he was in the photo. Harold Keller almost never discussed it. The photo made the country feel like a winner. The men in it carried what they saw alone.
None of this takes anything away from the image. It puts the moment back into the war it came out of, and three of the men in the frame did not live to see that war end. That is the picture.
How to Honor the Iwo Jima Flag Raising Today
The anniversary of the raising is February 23, the Marine Corps birthday is November 10, and Memorial Day 2026 is May 25. On any of those days, visit the memorial if you are near Arlington, learn the six names, or put a recurring donation on a Marine veteran cause like the Marine Corps League or Semper Fi & America's Fund. And fly your own flag correctly: half-staff until noon on Memorial Day, then full staff, and lit if it stays up after dark. If your porch flag is faded or fraying, replace it before the anniversary. Our flags and flag poles collection carries embroidered-star flags and the hardware to fly them right.
To go deeper, the 13 folds of the American flag ceremony honors men like the six on Suribachi, and our Memorial Day 2026 guide covers the half-staff rule. If a veteran in your life has never seen the memorials in Washington, look into Honor Flight, which flies them there for free.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was the Iwo Jima flag raising?
February 23, 1945, on the summit of Mount Suribachi. The first, smaller flag went up around 10:20 a.m. The larger, famous flag (the one in the Joe Rosenthal photograph) went up around noon.
Who are the six men in the Iwo Jima flag raising photo?
All six are Marines: Michael Strank, Harlon Block, Franklin Sousley, Ira Hayes, Harold Schultz, and Harold Keller. Schultz was confirmed in 2016 (replacing John Bradley), and Keller in 2019 (replacing Rene Gagnon).
Was the Iwo Jima flag raising staged?
No. The Rosenthal photograph captured the second of two real flag raisings, ordered so the flag could be seen from the beach. Rosenthal took a separate posed photo afterward, but the famous image is a real, unrehearsed action shot.
Where is the actual Iwo Jima flag now?
Both flags from February 23, 1945 are preserved at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia, and both are on permanent display. Admission is free.
Why do Marines salute the Iwo Jima flag raising photo?
Because three of the six men in it were dead within four weeks of the photo being taken, and because the image stands for the whole 36-day battle. For the Marine Corps, it is shorthand for "uncommon valor was a common virtue," Admiral Chester Nimitz's line about Iwo Jima.
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Honor Them the Right Way Six men. One flag. A country still standing because of what they did. Fly yours right this Memorial Day. |
