The Amazing Story of the Iwo Jima Flag Raising

Seventy-six years ago today six US Marines raised our flag on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima. Today we remember and honor the men in that photo and their comrades in arms. Over the next month, these men would secure Iwo Jima island while taking some of the heaviest casualties of the war. ​ These six flag raisers embody the sacrifices of the 16 million Americans who fought in World War II in the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe to defeat the scourges of Nazism, Fascism, and imperialism.

On the morning of 23 February 1945, a 54-by-28-inch American flag was raised on Mount Suribachi but it was too small to be seen easily from nearby landing beaches. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, a Beacon NY native, came ashore just as the first flag went up and asked for it as a souvenir. For these reasons a second bigger flag that measured 96-by-56–inches, which fittingly originated on Pearl Harbor, was raised by:

-CPL Harlon Block of Yorktown, Texas,

-PFC Franklin Sousley of Hill Top, Kentucky

-SGT Michael Strank who was born on the Marine Corps birthday in Czechoslovakia and raised in Franklin Borough, Pennsylvania

-CPL Ira Hayes a Pima Indian from Scatan, Arizona​

-CPL Harold Schultz of Detroit Michigan ​

-Cpl. Harold “Pie” Keller of Brooklyn, Iowa ​