The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph taken Feb. 23, 1945, inspired the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va., but was not the actual flag-raising on Iwo Jima.
Joe Rosenthal, the Associated Press photographer who snapped the famous picture, was climbing Mount Suribachi that morning when the first flag was raised.
The original flag-raising took place at 10:37 a.m.
A few minutes later, while Mr. Rosenthal was atop the volcanic mountain searching for the men who raised the first flag, Marine commanders decided to replace it with a larger flag.
Mr. Rosenthal turned his attention to the group of five Marines and one Navy corpsman preparing the second flag.
"Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera, and shot the scene," Mr. Rosenthal told the Associated Press in a 1995 interview. He lives alone, at age 86, in a San Francisco apartment.
What he caught on film with his bulky Speed Graphic camera, the standard for press photographers at the time, has been called the greatest photograph of all time.
It may well be the most widely reproduced.
It served as the symbol for the Seventh War Loan Drive and was used on 3.5 million posters. It inspired a postage stamp and graced the covers of magazines and newspapers' pages.
It also became the model for the 78-foot bronze Marine memorial statue in Arlington, Va., which was dedicated in 1954. -- Mark Curnutte
