Within a month, three of the six pictured were killed in battle. The remaining three marines became celebrities in a savings bond drive. The photo, the second taken of a flag raising on Mount Suribachi that day, won the Pulitzer Prize. The flag and the smaller one used in the earlier flag-raising are in the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Virginia.
Interesting. I’ve been to the Marine Corps Museum twice and I don’t remember seeing the second flag there. I definitely remember seeing the original flag, but not the second flag. I wonder if I missed it (both times) or if it is newly there.
Also, one of the six (the longest survivor) wasn’t a marine – he was a navy corpsmen, a medic.
I did a little more research. I first learned from Wikipedia that both flags were at the Marine Museum, but the Museum web site says only this: “Close by is the flag raised on Iwo Jima and photographed by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.”
The first flag was about half the size of the more famous second flag. The point of the second flag-raising was to have a flag large enough that those fighting on the beaches would see it and be encouraged. The flag in the photo is 96 X 56 inches.
And yes, the last survivor was a Navy corpsman. The other five were marines — a sergeant, three corporals and a PFC. The flag pole was a water pipe.
Hmmm, I think that both Wikipedia and the museum web site are wrong. I am pretty sure, in thinking about it, that there is only one flag at the museum. And it is most definitely the first flag, the one that was removed so a bigger flag could go up. I’m not sure the second, bigger, flag survived the battle.
I don’t have any photos to check, because no photography of the flag is allowed. Last time I was there, a fellow visitor asked the volunteer who was watching over the flag display what would happen if he took a photo. The answer was that he would be dealing with “one pissed off Marine.”
As for your explanation of why the flags were switched – that’s the benevolent explanation. The truth is that the commander of the battalion that originally took Suribachi (and put up the first flag) heard that the Secretary of the Navy wanted the flag as a souvenir. The Marine commander felt that the flag should belong to the battalion – so he replaced it in order to secure the original flag. Making it bigger was an afterthought.
I have a copy of James Bradley’s Flags of Our Fathers
, but I’ve never read it. I guess tonight would be a good time.
Bradley says the iconic flag, the one in the photo, was shredded by the wind in a few weeks as it flew. The first flag was saved, and as Jill says it — the smaller first flag — must be the flag at the Marine Museum.