The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. The American invasion, designated Operation Detachment, had the goal of capturing the island with its two airfields: South Field and Central Field.
By the morning of 23 February, Mount Suribachi was effectively cut off above ground from the rest of the island. The Marines knew there was an extensive network of below-ground defenses, and that in spite of its isolation above ground, the volcano was still connected via the tunnel network. They expected a fierce fight for the summit. Two small patrols from two rifle companies from the 2/28 Marines were sent up the volcano to reconnoiter routes on the mountain’s north face. The recon patrols made it to the summit and scrambled down again, reporting any contact to the 2/28 Marines commander, Lieutenant Colonel Chandler W. Johnson.
Popular accounts embroidered by the press in the aftermath of the release of the photo of the flag raising, had the Marines fighting all the way up to the summit. Although the Marine riflemen expected an ambush, the larger patrol going up afterwards encountered a few defenders once on top and after the flag was raised. The majority of the Japanese troops stayed in the tunnel network during shelling, only occasionally attacking in small groups, and were generally all killed.
Johnson called for a reinforced platoon size patrol from E Company to climb Suribachi and seize and occupy the crest. The patrol commander, First Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier, was handed the battalion’s American flag to be raised on top to signal Suribachi’s capture, if they reached the summit. Johnson and the Marines anticipated heavy fighting, but the patrol encountered only a small amount of sniper fire on the way up the mountain. Once the top was secured by Schrier and his men, a length of Japanese water pipe was found there among the wreckage, and the American flag was attached to the pipe and then raised and planted on top of Mount Suribachi which became the first foreign flag to fly on Japanese soil.[43] Photographs of the flag and some of the patrol members around it were taken by Marine photographer Louis R. Lowery, the only photographer who had accompanied Schrier’s patrol up the mountain.
As the flag went up, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had just landed on the beach at the foot of Mount Suribachi and decided that he wanted the flag as a souvenir. Johnson believed that the flag belonged to the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, who had captured that section of the island. In the early afternoon, Johnson sent Gagnon, a runner (messenger) from his battalion for E Company, to take a larger flag up the volcano to replace the smaller and less visible flag. The replacement flag was attached to a heavier section of water pipe, and six Marines proceeded to raise it into place as the smaller flag was taken down and delivered to the battalion’s headquarters down below. It was during this second flag-raising that Rosenthal took the photograph “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima”. The second flag flew on Mount Suribachi until it was taken down on 14 March, when at the same time an American flag was officially raised during a ceremony at the V Amphibious Corps command post near Mount Suribachi. The official flag raising was ordered by Holland Smith and attended by Erskine and some members of the 3rd Marine Division.
Here is the broadcast by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, given two days later, on February 25th – effectively boosting American morale in the process.
