Iwo Jima is a small volcanic island in the Volcano Islands, about 4⅔ miles long and 2½ miles wide, roughly 660 nautical miles south of Tokyo and 625 north of Saipan (Bartley, pp. 2–4). By late 1944 B-29 Superfortresses from the Marianas were flying past it to bomb Japan. Its radar, Alexander writes, gave Tokyo two hours’ warning of every strike, and fighters staging through it attacked the bombers and raided their fields on Saipan and Tinian (Alexander, Closing In; Craven and Cate, pp. 577–582). In American hands its airfields could base escort fighters, take in damaged bombers and end the raids. On 3 October 1944 the Joint Chiefs directed Nimitz to seize positions in the chain; the operation was named DETACHMENT (Bartley, pp. 22–25).

Sources: Bartley; Alexander; Craven and Cate

Read more: Chapter 1: Kuribayashi’s island

Alexander’s official history translates Iwo Jima as “Sulphur Island” (Closing In, “Assault Preparations”). Sulfur vents steamed on its northern plateau, and before the war its roughly 1,100 residents worked a small sulfur refinery and a sugar mill, farmed and fished (Bartley, p. 3). The United States returned the island to Japanese jurisdiction in 1968. In June 2007 Japan’s Geographical Survey Institute, at the urging of former islanders and their descendants, restored the prewar name, Iwo To (Associated Press, 2007). Both names refer to the same island. American histories and memorials still use Iwo Jima; Japanese government maps now use Iwo To.

Sources: Alexander; Bartley; Associated Press, 21 June 2007

Read more: Chapter 9 · Visiting today

The answer depends on which date is meant. The naval bombardment began on 16 February 1945. The Marines landed at 0900 on 19 February; the first armored amphibians touched down at 0902 and the first troops at 0905 (Bartley, p. 52). The island was declared secured at 1800 on 16 March, “26 days and nine hours” after the landing (Bartley, p. 189), but about 500 Japanese held out in a gorge near Kitano Point. The capture and occupation phase was declared complete at 0800 on 26 March, 36 days after D-Day, and the Army’s 147th Infantry took over ground defense on 4 April (Bartley, p. 193).

Sources: Bartley, pp. 52, 189, 193

Read more: Day-by-day timeline · Chapter 8

The landing force asked for ten days of preparatory naval gunfire and received three, 16 to 18 February (Bartley, pp. 40–42). Admiral Raymond Spruance tied the bombardment to the fast carriers’ strike on Tokyo, judged that the long air campaign from the Marianas was worth nearly another day of gunfire, and worried about ammunition and surprise. Vice Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner was willing to give four days if Spruance agreed; Spruance did not (Garand and Strobridge, pp. 489–492). The three days did expose part of the defense: when underwater demolition teams and gunboats closed the beaches on 17 February, Japanese guns opened fire, gave away their positions and were destroyed before D-Day.

Sources: Bartley; Garand and Strobridge; Alexander

Read more: Chapter 1

The landing force had 70,647 Marine assault troops (Garand and Strobridge, p. 475). The whole expeditionary force, with garrison troops and Army and Navy shore units, was 111,308, and more than 250,000 Americans took part at sea and ashore (Garand and Strobridge, pp. 475–476). Three Marine divisions fought, the 3d, 4th and 5th, under Maj. Gen. Harry Schmidt’s V Amphibious Corps. Against them, postwar estimates put Japanese Army and Navy strength at 20,530 to 21,060 (Bartley, App. VI), and some sources go as high as 23,000. Before the landing, American intelligence had estimated only 13,000 to 14,000 defenders.

Sources: Garand and Strobridge; Bartley, App. VI

Read more: The numbers, honestly · Chapter 1

The 4th and 5th Marine Divisions landed abreast on a 3,500-yard strip of beaches below Mount Suribachi, named from left to right Green, Red, Yellow and Blue (Bartley, p. 52). H-Hour was 0900. Kuribayashi’s men waited out the bombardment underground and opened fire once the beaches were crowded, with guns already registered on them (Bartley, pp. 52–53). The 28th Marines crossed the narrow neck of the island and cut Suribachi off. About 30,000 men were ashore by nightfall (Garand and Strobridge, p. 523). The day cost 2,420 casualties: 501 killed in action, 47 died of wounds, 1,755 wounded, 18 missing and 99 combat fatigue (Bartley, p. 68).

Sources: Bartley, pp. 52–68; Garand and Strobridge

Read more: Chapter 2: D-Day on the black sand

It is not sand in the usual sense but loose black volcanic ash. Behind the waterline the beach climbed in terraces built by the surf, the first as much as 15 feet high. Marines sank to their ankles, and the ash would not hold a wheeled vehicle; jeeps and trucks bogged down before they were clear of a landing ship’s ramp (Bartley, p. 52; Garand and Strobridge, pp. 506, 508). The planners had expected some of this and prepared sleds and about 8½ miles of Marston matting to lay over the ash (Bartley, pp. 32–33). The ash helped the defenders: mixed with cement, it made strong concrete for their pillboxes (Garand and Strobridge, p. 454).

Sources: Bartley; Garand and Strobridge

Read more: Chapter 2 · Chapter 1

Yes. Gunnery Sgt. John Basilone, who had received the Medal of Honor for Guadalcanal, was mortally wounded by a mortar shell late in the afternoon of 19 February 1945 while leading his machine-gun platoon of the 1st Battalion, 27th Marines, against the southern part of Airfield No. 1 (Alexander, Closing In, “D-Day”). He received the Navy Cross for his actions on Iwo Jima. His Medal of Honor is not counted among the 27 awarded for Iwo Jima, because it was earned on Guadalcanal in 1942.

Sources: Alexander, Closing In; Congressional Medal of Honor Society

Read more: Chapter 2 · Medals of Honor

He commanded the 109th Division and the defense of Iwo Jima. A cavalry officer from Nagano Prefecture, he had spent several years as a junior officer in the United States and Canada (Alexander, Closing In). Premier Hideki Tojo gave him the island in late May 1944, and he arrived in June (Garand and Strobridge, pp. 450–451). He gave up the doctrine of stopping invaders at the water’s edge, compromised with naval officers who insisted on beach positions, and in December replaced 18 officers, including his chief of staff and brigade commander (Garand and Strobridge, pp. 457–458). Bartley gives his age as 53 and Garand and Strobridge as 54. Holland Smith later called him the most redoubtable of all his Pacific adversaries (Alexander).

Sources: Alexander; Garand and Strobridge; Bartley, p. 8

Read more: Chapter 1

The sources disagree. Bartley, working from a Japanese account, describes a planned passage of 38,000 meters of which only 5,000 meters was finished when the Marines landed (p. 15). Garand and Strobridge give a plan of almost 17 miles with more than 11 miles complete (p. 456). They may be counting different things; neither says. Other details are clearer: Kuribayashi’s command post lay about 75 feet underground with 500 feet of tunnel, man-made caves ran 30 to 40 feet deep and some held 300 to 400 men, and the works inside Suribachi went down seven stories (Garand and Strobridge, p. 455; Bartley, p. 15; Alexander). In heat and sulfur fumes, men could dig only five to seven minutes at a time (Bartley, p. 15).

Sources: Bartley, p. 15; Garand and Strobridge, pp. 455–456; Alexander

Read more: Chapter 1

No one knows for certain, and his body was never identified. Prisoners placed him alive on 18 March in a cave at the southeast end of the gorge near Kitano Point, with Rear Adm. Toshinosuke Ichimaru and Col. Masuo Ikeda (Bartley, p. 191). Bartley thought it probable that he died or killed himself in the gorge (p. 192). Japanese accounts cited by Alexander give either ritual suicide on 23 March or death on the night of 25–26 March, and rumor put him at the head of the attack of 26 March. Garand and Strobridge conclude that his fate has never been determined (p. 710). Tokyo had promoted him to full general effective 17 March (Garand and Strobridge, p. 706).

Sources: Bartley, pp. 191–192; Garand and Strobridge; Alexander

Read more: Chapter 8: The gorge and the last attack

Rear Adm. Toshinosuke Ichimaru commanded the naval forces, and under him Capt. Samaji Inouye (Inoue in Bartley) led the Naval Guard Force. From December 1944 the 2d Mixed Brigade, the main infantry force, was commanded by Maj. Gen. Sadasue Senda, a former artillery officer (Garand and Strobridge, p. 458; Alexander). His name sometimes appears as “Col. Masuo Senda,” which seems to confuse him with Col. Masuo Ikeda, commander of the 145th Infantry Regiment. Prisoners said Senda killed himself on 14 March (Bartley, p. 191); Garand and Strobridge give 15 March, and his body was never found (p. 694). Lt. Col. Takeichi Nishi of the 26th Tank Regiment was a baron who had won the 1932 Olympic show-jumping gold medal (Garand and Strobridge, p. 454).

Sources: Bartley; Garand and Strobridge; Alexander

Read more: Chapter 5 · Chapter 7

Very few. Bartley counts 1,091 residents in 1943, living in and around Motoyama, Nishi, Kita and Minami (p. 3); Garand and Strobridge give almost 1,100 in five villages (p. 445). After Saipan fell, the island commander ordered them off, and the evacuation was complete by late July 1944 (Garand and Strobridge, p. 453). About 103 men were kept back to work for the military. The sources differ on their fate: the Associated Press (2025) reports that 82 of them died, while the historian Ishihara Shun writes that only 10 of the mobilized islanders survived (nippon.com, 2018). Former residents and their descendants have never been allowed to return to live on the island.

Sources: Bartley; Garand and Strobridge; Associated Press, 2025; Ishihara, 2018

Read more: Chapter 1 · Chapter 6

A 40-man patrol from Company E, 2d Battalion, 28th Marines, led by 1st Lt. Harold G. Schrier, reached the crater rim at about 1015 on 23 February 1945 and raised a flag 54 by 28 inches on a length of Japanese pipe at 1020 (Bartley, p. 76). The flag had come ashore from the transport Missoula. Alexander names the men who raised it as Schrier, Platoon Sgt. Ernest T. Thomas Jr., Sgt. Henry O. Hansen, Cpl. Charles W. Lindberg and Pfcs. Louis C. Charlo and James Michels; in 2016 the Marine Corps concluded that Navy corpsman John Bradley was involved as well. SSgt. Louis R. Lowery of Leatherneck magazine photographed it (Garand and Strobridge, pp. 540–542).

Sources: Bartley, p. 76; Alexander; Garand and Strobridge; USMC statement, 23 June 2016

Read more: Chapter 3: Mount Suribachi · The two flags

The first flag was small for something meant to be seen across the island. A Marine went aboard LST-779, beached near the volcano, for a larger set of colors, 8 feet by 4 feet 8 inches, and it replaced the first flag about three hours later (Bartley, p. 76; Garand and Strobridge, p. 542). Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press photographed the raising, and the Marine cameraman Sgt. William H. Genaust filmed it from a few feet away. Rosenthal’s picture won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize. The sources differ slightly on the time: Alexander and the official history say about three hours after the first, while Bartley’s wording places Rosenthal’s picture in the morning (Bartley, p. 77).

Sources: Bartley; Garand and Strobridge; Alexander; National Park Service

Read more: Chapter 3 · The two flags

Since the Marine Corps’ 2019 review, they are identified as Harlon Block, Harold Keller, Ira Hayes, Harold Schultz, Franklin Sousley and Michael Strank. The identifications made in 1945 were corrected three times. In 1947 Block was identified at the base of the pole in place of Sgt. Henry Hansen. In June 2016 a Marine Corps panel found that Schultz, not Navy corpsman John Bradley, was in the photograph; Bradley had taken part in the first raising. In October 2019 a further board identified Keller in place of Rene Gagnon, who is still credited with carrying the larger flag up the mountain (USMC statements, 23 June 2016 and 16 October 2019). Strank and Block were killed on 1 March, Sousley on 21 March.

Sources: U.S. Marine Corps statements, 2016 and 2019; DVIDS, 2015

Read more: Chapter 3 · The two flags

No. The second flag was a deliberate replacement, but the moment itself was not posed; Alexander’s official history states that none of the photographs of the two raisings was posed (Closing In, “Suribachi”). The rumor began with a misunderstanding. After the raising, Rosenthal posed a group of cheering Marines under the flag, the picture he called the “gung-ho” shot. Asked on Guam whether his picture was posed, he said yes, thinking of that group photograph. Time repeated the charge on the radio, then retracted it and apologized (Lancaster, American Heritage, 2023). Genaust’s motion picture, shot beside Rosenthal, shows the same raising as it happened.

Sources: Alexander, Closing In; Lancaster, 2023

Read more: Chapter 3

No. The flags went up on 23 February, D+4. The island was not declared secured until 1800 on 16 March, and the last Japanese attack came before dawn on 26 March (Bartley, pp. 76, 189, 192). Most of the dying came afterward, in the ridges, ravines and gorges of the north: three of the six men in Rosenthal’s photograph were killed after it was taken. The official history calls the capture of Suribachi “the end of a beginning” (Garand and Strobridge, p. 546). An official flag-raising ceremony was held at V Amphibious Corps headquarters at 0930 on 14 March, and the flag that had flown over Suribachi since 23 February was then taken down (Bartley, p. 187).

Sources: Bartley; Garand and Strobridge, p. 546

Read more: Chapter 3 · Timeline

It was the Marines’ name for the complex of Hill 382, Turkey Knob, the Amphitheater and the ruins of Minami village, east of Airfield No. 2, where the 4th Marine Division fought from 25 February to 10 March 1945. The official histories record the name but not who coined it (Bartley, p. 149; Alexander). Hill 382 carried a wrecked radar station and was tunneled throughout. Marines reached it on 26 February and were driven off; the 2d Battalion, 24th Marines, reported it secured on the afternoon of 2 March, though caves were still being sealed days later (Bartley, pp. 154–164). The division lost 4,075 men in those fourteen days (Bartley, p. 177).

Sources: Bartley, pp. 149–177; Alexander

Read more: Chapter 5: The Meat Grinder

Mostly at close range, with flamethrowers, tanks and demolitions, and engineers working alongside the riflemen. On Suribachi alone, the 5th Engineer Battalion destroyed 165 concrete pillboxes and blockhouses and sealed 200 caves (Garand and Strobridge, p. 545). In the Meat Grinder, 75-mm tank shells did little to concrete walls, and on 4 March the 24th Marines used 2,200 pounds of explosives to close cave mouths (Bartley, pp. 164–167; Garand and Strobridge, pp. 667–669). Flame tanks burned out positions the infantry could not reach (Bartley, p. 103). Sealing one entrance was seldom enough, because most caves had several joined by tunnels, and defenders sometimes came back into ground already taken.

Sources: Garand and Strobridge; Bartley

Read more: Chapter 5 · Chapter 6 · Chapter 3

On 17 February, twelve LCI(G) gunboats supporting the underwater demolition teams were all damaged and one was sunk, with 52 killed and 148 wounded (NHHC, H-Gram 042); Lt. (jg) Rufus G. Herring earned the operation’s first Medal of Honor that day. On the evening of 21 February, Japanese special attack aircraft sank the escort carrier Bismarck Sea with 318 men lost, the last American aircraft carrier sunk in the war, and knocked Saratoga out of the battle with 123 killed and 192 wounded (NHHC, H-Gram 042). The cargo ship Keokuk lost 17 killed. Estimates of the number of attacking aircraft run from about a dozen to 50. The Navy’s dead for the operation numbered 881 (Bartley, App. III).

Sources: NHHC, H-Gram 042; DANFS; Bartley

Read more: Chapter 9: Sea, air and the B-29s · Chapter 1

At about 0515 on 26 March, 200 to 300 Japanese struck the camps of the Army Air Forces’ VII Fighter Command, the 5th Pioneer Battalion and other units near the western beaches. VII Fighter Command lost 44 killed and 88 wounded; the 5th Pioneers lost 9 killed and 31 wounded and killed 196 of the attackers (Bartley, p. 192). 1st Lt. Harry L. Martin of the 5th Pioneer Battalion earned the battle’s last Medal of Honor, posthumously. At 0800 the capture and occupation phase was announced complete (Bartley, p. 193). Rumor had Kuribayashi leading the attack, but his body was not found among the dead.

Sources: Bartley, pp. 192–193; CMOHS

Read more: Chapter 8 · Timeline

Yes. The Central Intelligence Agency’s account of the code talkers (2008) states that six Navajo code talkers operated continuously during the invasion of Iwo Jima and sent more than 800 messages. It quotes Maj. Howard Connor, a Marine signal officer at Iwo Jima: “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.” Their code was built on the Navajo language and was not broken during the war. Our nine chapters, which follow the official Marine Corps narratives, do not tell this part of the story, and we have not found the 800-message figure in those histories, so it rests here on the CIA’s account.

Sources: Central Intelligence Agency, “Navajo Code Talkers and the Unbreakable Code,” 2008

Read more: Sources and research notes

Bartley prints a total of 6,821 Americans killed or died of wounds: 5,931 Marines (4,554 killed in action, 1,331 died of wounds and 46 missing presumed dead), 881 Navy and 9 Army (Bartley, pp. 210, 221; NHHC, H-Gram 042). Marine casualties of all kinds came to 25,851, including 17,272 wounded and 2,648 combat fatigue cases; Navy casualties were 2,798 and Army 37 (Bartley, App. III). Joseph Alexander’s 1994 history, counting only the assault units and their Navy medical personnel, gives 24,053 casualties and 6,140 dead. Each total counts a different group of people, so they should not be mixed or added together.

Sources: Bartley, App. III and p. 210; Alexander; NHHC

Read more: The numbers, honestly · Chapter 8

No complete Japanese return survives, so every figure is an estimate. Bartley puts the garrison at 20,530 to 21,060 (App. VI). By the landing force’s count, about 20,700 were “killed and sealed up in caves” through 26 March, and the Army killed 1,602 more in April and May (Morison, p. 69 n.; Bartley, p. 193); Alexander says the corps killed about 22,000. Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare counts about 21,900 Japanese war dead on Iwo To. Only 216 prisoners were taken through 26 March and 867 in April and May. These counts overlap and do not reconcile exactly, but all agree that nearly the whole garrison died.

Sources: Bartley; Morison; Alexander; Japan MHLW

Read more: The numbers · Chapter 8

In total casualties, yes; in deaths, no. Bartley’s figures give 25,851 Marine, 2,798 Navy and 37 Army casualties, 28,686 in all (our sum of his figures, not a total he prints), against a Japanese garrison of about 21,000 (Bartley, App. III and VI). But most American casualties were wounded: 6,821 Americans died, while nearly the whole garrison was killed. Iwo Jima is often described as the only Pacific battle in which American casualties exceeded Japanese; we have not found that claim stated in the official histories used here, so we give the numbers and leave the comparison to the reader.

Sources: Bartley, App. III and VI

Read more: The numbers, honestly

Twenty-seven: 22 to Marines and 5 to Navy men, four of them hospital corpsmen and one, Lt. (jg) Rufus G. Herring, a gunboat commander. Fourteen were posthumous. Alexander notes that this was more than a quarter of all the Medals of Honor awarded to Marines in the Second World War. Herring’s was the first, for 17 February; 1st Lt. Harry L. Martin’s, for 26 March, was the last. Pfc. Jacklyn H. Lucas, 17 years and 6 days old on 20 February, is described by the Marine Corps as the youngest Marine ever to receive the medal, and Cpl. Hershel W. “Woody” Williams, who died in 2022, was the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient of the war.

Sources: Congressional Medal of Honor Society; Alexander; NHHC; USMC History Division

Read more: All 27 Medals of Honor · Chapter 4

Bartley writes that by the end of the war 2,251 B-29s carrying 24,761 crewmen landed on the island (p. 210). The Army Air Forces history gives about 2,400 landings and some 25,000 men aboard, a figure it reached by assuming eleven-man crews (Craven and Cate, p. 598). Not every landing was an emergency; many were stops for fuel, training or bomb loads. The first was Dinah Might, which the Marine histories date to the afternoon of 4 March 1945 on Airfield No. 1 (Bartley, p. 210); the Army Air Forces history dates the first emergency landing to 9 March without naming the aircraft (Craven and Cate, p. 595). P-51s first escorted B-29s to Tokyo from Iwo on 7 April.

Sources: Bartley, p. 210; Craven and Cate, pp. 595–598

Read more: Chapter 9

Historians still disagree. The Marine Corps’ case, in Bartley’s words, is that the island “had to be taken” (p. 210). The Army Air Forces’ own historians called estimates of 20,000 airmen saved “a gross exaggeration,” since many damaged bombers could have reached the Marianas and about half of the crews who came down at sea were rescued; they judged most accurate Admiral Ernest King’s more careful claim, that the lives saved exceeded the lives lost taking the island (Craven and Cate, pp. 597–598). Robert Burrell argued in 2004 and 2006 that most landings were not emergencies. The Navy’s own H-Gram concludes that, with hindsight, the answer is “probably ‘no’” (NHHC, H-Gram 042).

Sources: Bartley; Craven and Cate; Burrell; NHHC, H-Gram 042

Read more: Chapter 9

Not as an ordinary traveler. The island, officially Iwo To, is a Japan Self-Defense Forces base with no civilian residents and is closed to the public; former islanders may visit for memorial events but may not live there (Associated Press, 2025). The main chance for Americans to stand on it is the annual Reunion of Honor, a joint U.S.–Japanese ceremony near the invasion beaches, open to veterans, families and official parties; trips are arranged through the Iwo Jima Association of America. Otherwise the beaches can be seen only from the air or the sea. At home, the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington and the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia, tell the story.

Sources: Associated Press, 2025; Iwo Jima Association of America; National Park Service

Read more: Where to see Iwo Jima’s story · Chapter 8

It is a joint American and Japanese memorial ceremony held on Iwo To, usually in March. American and Japanese veterans first met on the island in 1985, for the 40th anniversary of the battle, at a granite memorial near the invasion beaches whose English and Japanese faces look toward the beaches and inland. Veterans, their families and official delegations from both countries have returned for the ceremony since. The 80th Reunion of Honor was held on 29 March 2025, when the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Carlos Ruiz, greeted veterans of the battle (U.S. Marine Corps photograph by LCpl. Jennifer Le). Trips are arranged through the Iwo Jima Association of America.

Sources: U.S. Marine Corps; Iwo Jima Association of America

Read more: Remembrance · Chapter 8

It depicts the second flag raising on Suribachi, after Rosenthal’s photograph. Felix de Weldon, a sculptor then serving in the Navy, modeled it, and Gagnon, Hayes and Bradley posed for the faces. President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicated it in Arlington, Virginia, on 10 November 1954, the 179th anniversary of the Marine Corps. Its bronze figures are 32 feet tall and raise a 60-foot flagpole, and its $850,000 cost was met by donations, with no public funds (National Park Service). After the 2016 and 2019 corrections, the Park Service identifies the figures as Block, Keller, Hayes, Schultz, Sousley and Strank. Nimitz’s tribute, “uncommon valor was a common virtue,” is cut into its base.

Sources: National Park Service; Alexander, Closing In

Read more: Chapter 3 · Visiting today

Yes, about half of them. Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare counts about 21,900 Japanese war dead on Iwo To and, as of July 2026, about 11,110 sets of remains still unrecovered. Most of the garrison died in caves and tunnels, many of them sealed during the fighting, and Japanese recovery teams still search the island. A 2016 law made recovering the war dead a national duty. Kuribayashi’s own body was never identified. At least one American is still missing there too: Sgt. William H. Genaust, who filmed the second flag raising, was killed in or near a cave on Hill 362A, by the Associated Press account on 4 March 1945, and his remains have never been recovered.

Sources: Japan MHLW, as of July 2026; Associated Press, 2007

Read more: Remembrance · Chapter 7

No. During the battle each Marine division laid out its own cemetery near the southern end of the island. The 4th Division dedicated its cemetery on 15 March 1945 and the 5th on 21 March, and when a Navy historian arrived on 20 April the three cemeteries held 5,330 graves (Garand and Strobridge, p. 712). They were temporary. After the war the American dead were moved, as their families chose, home to family plots or to national cemeteries; 1st Lt. Jack Lummus, for example, was reinterred in Ennis, Texas. At the 5th Division’s dedication, Navy chaplain Roland B. Gittelsohn gave the sermon later published as “The Purest Democracy.”

Sources: Garand and Strobridge; USMC History Division

Read more: Chapter 8 · Remembrance

Both are dramas directed by Clint Eastwood and released in 2006, not documentaries, and neither should be cited as evidence. Flags of Our Fathers came from the 2000 book by James Bradley and Ron Powers and is built around the men credited in 1945 with the second flag raising, including Bradley’s father, Navy corpsman John Bradley. Ten years after the film, the Marine Corps concluded that John Bradley was not in Rosenthal’s photograph, though he took part in the first raising (USMC statement, 23 June 2016). Letters from Iwo Jima, a Japanese-language companion film, draws on Kuribayashi’s letters and won the Academy Award for sound editing (AFI Catalog).

Sources: USMC statement, 23 June 2016; Boston Globe, 2016 and 2026; AFI Catalog

Read more: Chapter 3 · Chapter 1