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Iwo Jima, Combat Photographer.
I don't know why this is classified as a "short" since it's about 45 minutes long. It's the story of one Marine combat photographer, Bill Genaust, who took the color footage of the raising of the American flag atop Mr. Suribachi.
Since it's 16 mm movie film, it's not as easily conveyed as the black-and-white photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal, a civilian AP photographer who was standing next to Genaust. You can't put movie film on a stamp; you can't make a recruiting poster out of it.
Genaust was a staff sergeant who had enlisted after Pearl Harbor. Rosenthal had tried to enlist too but had been rejected because of his vision. The guy wore glasses like coke bottle bottoms.
Some controversy surrounds the whole affair because there were actually two flag raisings. The first one, improvised an hour or so earlier than the one we're familiar with, was small. It didn't really mean much except that a couple of our guys had reached the mountain top. The fighting on and around Suribachi and the rest of the island was still fierce.
However, an officer below felt that a larger flag was warranted. His decision might have been influenced by the presence of James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy. The larger, more visible flag was toted up the mountainside and raised by a diverse group of Marines, including and American Indian and a U. S. Navy pharmacist's mate serving with the Marine Corps. Several feature films have dealt with that flag raising and the people who were responsible, including "The Outsider" and, more recently, "Flags of Our Fathers." Both are tragedies.
The fighting went on for weeks because the Japanese had riddle the island with underground tunnels. Genaust was killed while investigating a cave. The cave was sealed and Genaust's remains are still there.
Since it's 16 mm movie film, it's not as easily conveyed as the black-and-white photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal, a civilian AP photographer who was standing next to Genaust. You can't put movie film on a stamp; you can't make a recruiting poster out of it.
Genaust was a staff sergeant who had enlisted after Pearl Harbor. Rosenthal had tried to enlist too but had been rejected because of his vision. The guy wore glasses like coke bottle bottoms.
Some controversy surrounds the whole affair because there were actually two flag raisings. The first one, improvised an hour or so earlier than the one we're familiar with, was small. It didn't really mean much except that a couple of our guys had reached the mountain top. The fighting on and around Suribachi and the rest of the island was still fierce.
However, an officer below felt that a larger flag was warranted. His decision might have been influenced by the presence of James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy. The larger, more visible flag was toted up the mountainside and raised by a diverse group of Marines, including and American Indian and a U. S. Navy pharmacist's mate serving with the Marine Corps. Several feature films have dealt with that flag raising and the people who were responsible, including "The Outsider" and, more recently, "Flags of Our Fathers." Both are tragedies.
The fighting went on for weeks because the Japanese had riddle the island with underground tunnels. Genaust was killed while investigating a cave. The cave was sealed and Genaust's remains are still there.
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- rmax304823
- Mar 29, 2015
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