Effort to name Navy ship after AP photographer Rosenthal gaining traction

More than 75 years after Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took the iconic photograph of the second flag-raising on Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945, during the battle for Iwo Jima, an effort is underway to have a ship named for him for the inspirational impact the photo had on the Marines fighting there and the last war-bond drive of World War II.

Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photograph of the second flag-raising atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima during World War II.

Rosenthal’s photograph became a motivating symbol for the war and was helpful in raising $26.3 billion on the last war-bond drive, which was instrumental in helping the United States to continue on to victory against the Japanese. Now, it has become as much a symbol of the Marine Corps as the Eagle, Globe and Anchor.

James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy at the time who was on Iwo Jima that morning, was reported to have said when he saw the flag flying, “The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years.”

That adds another dimension of importance to Rosenthal’s photo.

But the diminutive 33-year-old photographer, whose eyesight was too poor to serve in the Army as a military photographer, barely made it to the top of Mount Suribachi after the first flag had been raised and was about to be replaced with a second, larger flag by the men of Easy Company, Second Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment, Fifth Marine Division.

“The flag’s about to go up, Joe,” Marine combat photographer Sgt. Bill Genaust reportedly said, standing beside Rosenthal.

He put together a makeshift platform of rocks and a Japanese sand bag and hopped up on it beside Genaust, who had a 16mm motion picture camera. Both men captured the second flag going up as the first one was going down. The Marine sergeant’s film of the second flag-raising provided proof that its raising was not staged, as was often speculated in the aftermath.

Rosenthal snapped the shot with his bulky Speed Graphic camera, using a “shutter speed of 1/400 and an aperture of about f/11.” Long before the advent of digital photography that provides the image immediately, Rosenthal had no idea of the quality of the photo he had just taken, and then he took a posed celebratory shot of the Marines on the mountain that became known as the “Gung-ho” photo. He sent the black-and-white film back to Guam to be developed and then sent out to The Associated Press in New York. Within 17 hours of the flag raising, the photo was on the newswires—and on the desk of President Franklin D. Roosevelt—and then on the front pages of Sunday newspapers across the country.

When Rosenthal got back to Guam a few days later, his photo had been shown in thousands of papers back in the States. Someone told him it was a great photo and asked if it had been staged. Thinking the man was talking about the “Gung-ho” photo of the Marines on the mountain taken after the flag had been raised, he replied that it had been staged. That caused controversy and confusion for years, even though Genaust’s moving-picture film verified that Rosenthal’s flag-raising photo had not been staged.

SSgt. Norm Hatch, a combat photographer who had taken film footage during the battle of Tarawa and was in charge of the Marine camera crew on Iwo Jima, was able to secure the rights for the Marine Corps to use the image forever without payment. While he hadn’t seen Genaust’s film, he vouched for the photo’s legitimacy to Gen. Archie Vandegrift, who then asked the AP for permission to use the photo in the Marines Corps’ recruiting efforts.

Joe Rosenthal in 1990. (Photo by Nancy Wong)

The general was offered two prints for the Marine Corps for a dollar each. Hatch hadn’t seen Genaust’s film of the flag-raising, but he bluffed and said they had the film and could “blow that up to 8x10 inches and make a print.” He said they might lose some definition, but the Marine Corps would own the footage and there would be no need to pay. Nobody knew Hatch hadn’t seen the photo.

He later said he had no idea if the negative was “ruined, scratched, underexposed or damaged in some way.” But the AP gave the Marines permission to use the photo “in perpetuity.” The Associated Press still owns the original negative, which is locked up at AP headquarters in New York City, according to Tom Graves, chapter historian of the USMC Combat Correspondents Association.

“I got to hold and examine it a few years ago,” he said. “It was the thrill of a lifetime.”

Rosenthal was already a successful photographer and had covered several campaigns in the South Pacific with the Marines, but the flag-raising photograph won him a Pulitzer Prize, cemented his reputation and career, and became the one for which he’s best known. It also lifted the spirits of the American people.

The photo became the model for a massive Felix de Weldon sculpture that was dedicated just outside Arlington National Cemetery in 1954, and it inspired other flag-raising sculptures across the country. The original plaster working model for the bronze and granite memorial statue currently resides in Harlingen, Texas, at the Marine Military Academy.

Other monuments based on de Weldon’s sculpture include three on Marine Corps bases at Quantico, Parris Island and Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii. Many other places have sketches on stone of the photo Rosenthal took, and thousands and thousands of framed photos hang in places across the country. “I took the picture,” Rosenthal always said, “the Marines took Iwo Jima.”

The Joe Rosenthal Chapter of the USMC Combat Correspondents Association (a group of retired military and civilian photographers, videographers and journalists) has petitioned Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro to name a ship the USS Joe Rosenthal to honor him for his historic image that became a national symbol of American spirit and determination. It is fitting, and long overdue, to honor Rosenthal in this way, and efforts are gaining real traction.

Rosenthal wasn’t a Marine or a sailor, but the AP combat photographer was right there with the Marines and other American combat troops—unarmed—at Hollandia, New Guinea, Guam, Peleliu, Angaur and Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theater. The only weapon he carried on those island campaigns was his bulky Speed Graphic camera that proved to be invaluable to victory and to history.

It’s time for the USS Joe Rosenthal.