“The question always arises ‘Was it a set up shot, or was it a grab shot?’ Well, it certainly wasn’t a set up shot - it was something the marines were going to do with me, or without me. I only photographed the moment.”

The battle for the island of Iwo Jima was one of the most vicious fought in the Pacific. For 35 days the island was defended by 22,000 courageous Japanese – only 1,000 were still alive at the end of the battle. The Americans casualties numbered 7,000 killed and 19,000 injured – all that loss of life for a seven and a half square mile strategic landing strip, 600 miles from Japan’s southern island. 

Once the high ground at the northern end of the island (Mount Suribachi) had been taken by the Americans, Admiral Nimitz ordered a flag to be raised that could be seen by both sides – in the hopes it would shorten the slaughter. But this flag – the first flag – was too small to be seen from the beach, so a second, larger flag measuring 2.5 x 1.3 mtrs, was sent to replace it.

Leaping from foxhole to foxhole, Joe Rosenthal and two armed marines started walking up the path, to record the moment. Half way up, they met the photographer of the first flag raising (Sargeant Louis Lowrie) coming back down. “You are too late!” he good naturedly goaded, “I already photographed the flag raising!”

At that point they very nearly turned back – but fortunately for history, they decided to take a look. At the top they found a team of marines tying the larger flag to a long piece of steel pipe. “which is the reason it took five men to get the flag pole into position” said Joe, “it was very heavy!”

At this stage, Rosenthal only had his Speed Graphic – having dropped his Rolleiflex overboard when transferring from the destroyer to the landing craft on his way to photograph the flag. He turned his camera sideways – trying to guage where he would need to stand in order to include the whole flag pole – walking backwards to find his vantage point. As he did so, he was slowly going back down the hill. At 5’6” tall, he was losing too much height, so he piled up a few Japanese sandbags and a couple of rocks and stood on those. At that moment the marines raised the flagpole and Joe instinctively made his iconic image.  It was the second photograph made of the flag raisings, but it was not a set up shot.

“Associated Press gave me a $100 bonus at the time” said Joe, “which was very nice – a hundred bucks was a lot of money back in ‘45”.  

This modest man, tried to avoid the notoriety associated with his picture and had dropped below the radar for many years. When I did eventually locate him, he was living in a sparsely furnished, two room flat in San Francisco. He was justifiably proud of the Pulitzer Prize certificate he received – framed and hanging on his bedroom wall and just visible behind him in my portrait.. 

Joe died in 2006.