AP WAS THERE: 70 years ago, Marines raise flag on Iwo Jima

FILE - In this Feb. 23, 1945 file photo, U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raise a U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima. Strategically located 660 miles from Tokyo, the Pacific island became the site of one of the bloodiest, most famous battles of World War II against Japan. (AP Photo/Joe Rosenthal, File) FILE - In this Feb. 23, 1945 file photo, U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raise a U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima. Strategically located 660 miles from Tokyo, the Pacific island became the site of one of the bloodiest, most famous battles of World War II against Japan. (AP Photo/Joe Rosenthal, File)

By Associated Press February 23, 2015 5 min read

EDITOR’S NOTE – On Feb. 23, 1945, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took a photograph that would become one of the most recognizable and reproduced images in history. It showed five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising an American flag atop Mount Suribachi during the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima.

Seventy years after its original publication, the AP is making Rosenthal’s photo and the story about the assault on Mount Suribachi available.

___

GUAM (AP) – Hard-fighting United States marines, who have paid the Pacific’s highest price for 58 hours of battle with 5,372 casualties at Iwo, wrested 546-foot Mt. Suribachi on the south tip of the island from the Japanese today.

The United States Flag was raised on the crater’s rim at 10:35 a.m. by the 28th Regiment, signaling the end of one phase of the five-day-old struggle.