This month marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima. The American invasion, codenamed Operation Detachment, sought to capture Iwo Jima’s two airfields, South Field and Central Field. After five weeks of intense battle and considerable losses for both Japanese and American soldiers, the Americans secured the island. This provided the United States with a strategic air base in the Pacific from which to launch fighter escorts for B-29 bomber raids on mainland Japan.
On the fourth day of battle, Marines from Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment raised a small American flag on the summit of Mount Suribachi. Later the same day, Colonel Chandler Johnson ordered the raising of a second, larger flag that would be visible across the island. Marine Sergeant William Homer Genaust shot the second flag raising on 16mm color motion picture film while Associated Press still photographer Joe Rosenthal and others photographed it. Rosenthal’s photograph, titled Raising the Flag of Iwo Jima, is now one of the most identifiable images of the 20th century.
The iconic photograph, which won Rosenthal the Pulitzer Prize, was turned into a war bonds poster by C.C. Beall and the United States Treasury Department during the 7th war loan drive in May 1945. It also appeared on a US postage stamp and became the model for Felix de Weldon’s Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, VA. Genaust’s film footage was used in civilian and military newsreels, military training films, popular documentaries, and, more recently, to help identify the soldiers’ identities in Rosenthal’s photograph. If you would like to learn more about NARA’s role in helping determine the soldiers involved in the second flag-raising, take a peek at this Know Your Records presentation by Criss (Kovac) Austin, the Motion Picture Preservation Lab supervisor.
Copies of Rosenthal’s photograph, Genaust’s film, and the 7th war bonds poster are all part of NARA’s special media holdings. A copy of Genaust’s film footage, local ID 127-R-3224, has recently been scanned as part of a larger enhanced processing project of films from Record Group 127: Records of the U.S. Marine Corps. Also available in the catalog are the associated shot cards for 127-R-3224. These documents provide information such as the photographer’s name, date, and location of the footage. In this instance, the documentation also explains that this footage was taken from part of a larger reel of film footage.
Over the years, the Unwritten Record has written about other copies of Genaust’s film and other records related to the Battle of Iwo Jima. Please read more about these items in the blog posts highlighted below.