Flags of Our Fathers

The film follows three surviving Marines from the famous photograph of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi as they are pulled from combat and paraded across America to sell war bonds. It contrasts the brutal reality of the battle with the sanitized heroism demanded of them at home. The men struggle with survivor's guilt and the commodification of their image.

The Battle of Iwo Jima was among the bloodiest of the Pacific War, and Joe Rosenthal's photograph of Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi became one of the most iconic images of the war. The surviving flag-raisers were brought home to headline a war bond tour, a fact that created lasting personal turmoil for several of them, notably Ira Hayes.

Based on James Bradley's book about his father, one of the flag-raisers, the film is well-researched though it dramatizes some personal interactions and internal states.

The first American ground offensive of the Pacific war, fought over a single airfield and the sea lanes that supplied it.

Marines seized the airfield — renamed Henderson Field — and held it through months of night attacks, naval battles and disease. Japan evacuated its surviving troops in February 1943.

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Cast: Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Barry Pepper

Positioned at February-March 1945 within the Pacific 1945 phase of the war, as part of the Battle of Iwo Jima. This is entry 135 of 150 in the chronological archive.

• Iwo Jima
• flag raising
• Marines
• war bonds
• Mount Suribachi

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  Sands of Iwo Jima

  February-March 1945

• 

  Letters from Iwo Jima

  February-March 1945

• 

  Wake Island

  December 8–23, 1941

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  Guadalcanal Diary

  August 1942 – February 1943

• 

  The Pacific

  1942–1945

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  The Great Raid

  January 28-30, 1945