On this day in history: Marines raise flag over Iwo Jima

On Feb. 23, 1945, six Marines teamed up for what would become one of the most iconic photos in American history.

Marines fighting on Iwo Jima scaled Mount Suribachi and worked together to push up an American flag, a moment that was captured by military photographers and later became an enduring symbol of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II.

Marines initially invaded Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945, as part of the U.S. island-hopping campaign in the Pacific, and it took four days to gain the summit of Suribachi, according to a Department of Defense report. 

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“The taking of the 554-foot hill was significant, in that it suppressed the fire from Japanese who were dug in and who had prime vantage of much of the island,” the DOD report reads.

Fighting continued on the island until March 26, resulting in the injury or death of about 27,000 Marines and sailors.

The brutal fighting also led to the deaths of 21,000 Japanese soldiers, who defended the island through a series of caves, tunnels and pillboxes.

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Yet the photo from four days into the battle remains its enduring image, spreading rapidly throughout the world and becoming a powerful recruiting and morale tool for the U.S. government.

“The photo was the centerpiece of a war-bond poster that helped raise $26 billion in 1945,” the Pulitzer Prize Board wrote in its online account of the image.

While the identity of the men in the photo has been the subject of decades of debate, the most recent research suggests the men are, from left, Pfc. Ira Hayes, Pfc. Harold Schultz, Sgt. Michael Strank, Pfc. Franklin Sousley, Pfc. Harold Keller and Cpl. Harlon Block.

Block, Sousley and Strank were later killed during the fighting on Iwo Jima.

But the image has endured the test of time, being duplicated on everything from postage stamps to a memorial just north of Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.