It was a powerful image that may have helped counteract the effects of the horror the men had seen. The flag was more an act of defiance and determination than of triumph.
In fact, the men on the top of the volcano who actually placed the first flag were attacked by Japanese shortly after they finished photographing the first flag.
The actual flag in the photo was saved from a ship that was sinking during the Pearl Harbor attack and was much larger than the first one used. The photographer of the famous picture was Joe Rosenthal, who saw men raising the second, larger flag.
The men on Iwo Jima did not know that this was the first battle covered by the media in real time, but the American public knew that the battle had been horrific / The photograph Joe Rosenthal took (whout even looking through the viewfinder) must have seen like just desserts for the attack on Pearl Harbor. The picture surfaced just as Americans had begun to realize just how high a price we were paying to take Iwo Jima. Unfortunately, the press did not serve the six men who raised the second flag well. They embellished the story with reports of great heroism and sniper fire. Unfortunately when the truth came out, many believed it was the six Marines who exaggerated the story and not the media. Worse, the flag became a symbol to Americans that the battle was over, and media interest drifted away from Iwo Jima.
Mike Strank was killed by a stray American shell on February 27. That night, Harlon Block was killed. In all, four were killed and another wounded. Of the survivors, their feelings the day the flag was raised must have been much different than how they felt about if afterwards, when they must have heard all the...
The real emotional triumph that day was when the first, smaller flag was raised. Ira Hayes rarely showed emotion. Rene Gagnon never even fired his rifle until March 12, and then reluctantly.
The impact of the picture was so powerful that Roosevelt wanted to formally declare them as national heroes. It seems likely that Rene Gagnon would have been quite bothered by that, as he watched his companion shot down by a Japanese soldier and only reluctantly shot that man. He did not like violence. Neither did Ira Hayes, who was visibly bothered the next day after he shot a Japanese soldier about to attack a foxhole he and friends were in. All of the men would be heroes in Americans' eyes, of course, just as all the men who fought on Iwo Jima were, but it seems likely that Hayes and Gagnon saw the flag-raising as one event in more than a month of Hell. Meanwhile, officials wanted to know who the men were in the photograph. Gagnon did the best he could but failed to identify Ira Hayes. When the survivors returned to America they were greeted as heroes. Bradley may have accepted that standard, having survived against all odds as a medic, rushing in to the firefights, but neither Hayes nor Gagnon were completely comfortable with the need to kill. It seems likely that when they looked at that famous photograph they saw the price that was paid by all their comrades, and the price they had to pay themselves, crossing the line to killer, to help win freedom for their country.
Bradley, James, with Powers, Ron. Flags of our Fathers. By James Bradley with Ron Powers. Rockland, MA: Wheeler Publishing, Inc., 2001.
