Iwo Jima: Three of the Six Men Who Raised the Flag on Iwo Jima Died in The Next 12 Days

The Battle of Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II in the

Pacific, is remembered through Joe Rosenthal's Pulitzer Prize-winning

photograph of six men raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi — but

the real story is far more brutal. Taken on Day 4 of a 36-day battle in

February 1945, that iconic image captured a moment, not the reality. By the

end of the fighting, 6,821 U.S. Marines were dead, and three of the six

flag raisers in the photograph did not survive the island.

Beneath that flag, deep inside a network of volcanic tunnels dug into

Mount Suribachi and the southern plateau, Japanese commander Lieutenant

General Tadamichi Kuribayashi had spent months preparing a defensive

system designed to inflict maximum American casualties. Having lived in

the United States — studying at Harvard and serving as a military attaché

in Washington — Kuribayashi understood exactly what he was fighting, and

still prepared to hold the island to the last man. On the American side,

Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone, a Medal of Honor recipient from Guadalcanal,

had been safely back in the United States selling war bonds when he

volunteered to return to combat. He was killed within hours of landing on

Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945.

The Battle of Iwo Jima continued for 31 days after Rosenthal's photograph

was taken — a brutal Pacific War campaign of tunnel warfare, hidden

bunkers, and close-quarters fighting across volcanic terrain. By the time

the U.S. Marine Corps declared the island secured on March 26, 1945, 27

Medals of Honor had been awarded — the most for any single battle in

American military history. The flag did not end the battle. It barely

interrupted it.

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CHAPTERS

00:00 — The Photograph You Think You Know

02:41 — Chapter 1: The Man Who Knew the Enemy (Kuribayashi in America, 1928)

05:38 — Chapter 2: "Only You Among All the Generals" (The Assignment, 1944)

09:39 — Chapter 3: The Man Who Came Back (Basilone, Guadalcanal, and the Return)

14:23 — Chapter 4: The Island That Swallowed Light (D-Day, February 19, 1945)

15:52 — Chapter 5: Manila John, Red Beach II (Basilone's Last Day)

18:32 — Chapter 6: The Flag That Isn't What You Think

22:12 — Chapter 7: The Meatgrinder (Northern Iwo Jima)

25:34 — Chapter 8: Underground (Kuribayashi's Final Weeks and His Poems)

27:38 — Chapter 9: The Last Night (March 25–26, 1945)

29:33 — Chapter 10: What It Cost

31:27 — Chapter 11: The Men They Were

33:53 — Epilogue: The Photograph, One More Time

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For the full cinematic experience — with historical photographs and archival footage — watch this episode on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@TheWW2Grognard

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RESEARCH SOURCES

Primary:

Kuribayashi, Tadamichi — Picture Letters from the Commander in Chief (Gyokusai sōshikikan no etegami). Compiled posthumously.

https://amzn.to/4mAFMfi

Basilone, John — Medal of Honor and Navy Cross Citations, USMC Historical Archive

Robert E. Allen — The First Battalion of the 28th Marines on Iwo Jima: A Day-by-Day History from Personal Accounts and Official Reports

https://amzn.to/4tMB7cp

Secondary:

Donald Yates — U.S. Marine Corps Remembering Iwo Jima

https://amzn.to/4tI821H

Kakehashi, Kumiko — So Sad to Fall in Battle (Presidio Press / Ballantine Books, 2007)

https://amzn.to/4mMioeZ

Bradley, James — Flags of Our Fathers (Bantam, 2000)

https://amzn.to/4elzoGt

Hammel, Eric — Two Flags over Iwo Jima (Zenith Press, 2018)

https://amzn.to/4dGapNT

Alexander, Joseph H. — Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima (USMC Historical Center, 1994)

National WWII Museum — nationalww2museum.org

Wikipedia — Battle of Iwo Jima, Tadamichi Kuribayashi, John Basilone, Joe Rosenthal, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima

Note: This documentary covers historical events of February–March 1945 and does not address current events.

MUSIC

Almost in F — Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1500002

Artist: http://incompetech.com/

American Frontiers by Aaron Kenny

Source: YouTube Audio Library

No.4 Piano Journey by Esther Abrami

Source: YouTube Audio Library

PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY

Script & Research: Human-authored | Narration: AI-generated | Images: U.S. National Archives, USMC Historical Archive, Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons — public domain

What happened after the photograph is the real story.