thedrifter
10-02-06, 04:13 PM
A photographer, a picture, a memorial
by Jerry H. Gunn
I was 12 years old and on my 7th grade trip to Washington when I saw it for the first time: the Marine Corps War Memorial, known as the Iwo Jima Memorial.
I knew it symbolized World War II in the Pacific, that it represented the men who raised the U.S flag in battle but at the time I did not know what inspired it, that it was a representation of something that really happened, that it was actually a moment frozen in time in a photograph, and later in the bronze statue my classmates and I gazed at.
Joe Rosenthal died last month.
Maybe you don't know who he was, but I'll bet you've seen his most famous photograph.
You see, in all of history, his was the only picture that became a statute, a memorial to the U.S. Marines and to American resolve and heroism in war time.
He was in the right place at the right time and decided to point and shoot his camera at just the right moment to capture what became the most famous combat photograph, possibly any photograph, ever taken.
Rosenthal died peacefully at age 94 near San Francisco Aug. 23, but at age 33 he was with a Marine rifle company atop Mount Suribachi on the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima.
Iwo Jima was only 750 miles from the Japanese homeland and the Army Air Force needed it as an emergency landing strip for B-29 bombers, so it had to be taken.
To the Marines who struggled for four days to take the mountain, it was just a dirty little pile of volcanic ash, infested with enemy infantry concealed with machine guns and artillery in caves, but on February 23, 1945, the Marines reached the top.
They raised the Stars and Stripes, but there was a problem. The flag was too small for the Marines and Navy down below to see, so they raised a second flag, a bigger one.
Rosenthal saw the bigger flag going up out of the corner of his eye, he later recalled, and snapped the camera, having no idea what the shot looked like.
He said it was like shooting a football game, that you never know what you have on film.
They did not have digital cameras in those days, of course, so there was no instant replay, no way to check it in the field.
Rosenthal did not know for days afterward what the picture looked like, but by then the whole world knew.
"Millions saw the picture before I did," he recalled years later.
It was a picture of six combat hardened, weary men stretching and bracing to raise their nation's flag.
It was picture that not only electrified but inspired that nation's people.
History is sometimes a pure chance meeting at an iconic moment, and those who experience it have no idea what it is at the time.
Rosenthal remembered that he almost did not to go to the summit that morning. A flag had already been raised on the island, but he decided to go up anyway and found the Marines were raising the second flag.
Considering the photo became so important, it won him very little money. He did receive a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography and was remembered as the man who took the Iwo Jima picture, but he was uncomfortable with fame.
The money, the fame, meant little to him.
"What I see behind the photo is what it took to get up those heights, the kind of devotion to their country that those young men had, the sacrifices they made," he said.
That's what the Iwo Jima picture meant to Joe Rosenthal.
It inspired another photographer to lift the American spirit at a time when it needed a lift the most 56 years later, only it did not occur on some battle torn remote island far away.
It happened September 11, 2001 on Manhattan Island, New York City, when Thomas Franklin snapped the photo of three firemen raising the flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center.
Franklin said he saw similarities between his photo and the Iwo Jima shot, and so did the rest of the country.
Critics claimed that Rosenthal staged his photo, but a Marine photographer's film proved it was genuine, because a frame captured by the Marine camera is almost identical to Rosenthal's picture.
I can only hope that I get the chance to take a picture like he did, that my camera will be ready, that I will seize the moment, but such a picture comes once in a life time, once in a century.
Joe Rosenthal did not seek fame. It came to him, but he was very proud to become an Honorary Marine in his closing years because of the picture that became a memorial that honors the Corps and its members for all time.
Semper Fi, Joe.
(Jerry Gunn is a reporter for WDUN NEWS TALK 550, MAJIC 1029, SPORTS RADIO 1240 THE TICKET and AccessNorthGa.com.)
Ellie
by Jerry H. Gunn
I was 12 years old and on my 7th grade trip to Washington when I saw it for the first time: the Marine Corps War Memorial, known as the Iwo Jima Memorial.
I knew it symbolized World War II in the Pacific, that it represented the men who raised the U.S flag in battle but at the time I did not know what inspired it, that it was a representation of something that really happened, that it was actually a moment frozen in time in a photograph, and later in the bronze statue my classmates and I gazed at.
Joe Rosenthal died last month.
Maybe you don't know who he was, but I'll bet you've seen his most famous photograph.
You see, in all of history, his was the only picture that became a statute, a memorial to the U.S. Marines and to American resolve and heroism in war time.
He was in the right place at the right time and decided to point and shoot his camera at just the right moment to capture what became the most famous combat photograph, possibly any photograph, ever taken.
Rosenthal died peacefully at age 94 near San Francisco Aug. 23, but at age 33 he was with a Marine rifle company atop Mount Suribachi on the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima.
Iwo Jima was only 750 miles from the Japanese homeland and the Army Air Force needed it as an emergency landing strip for B-29 bombers, so it had to be taken.
To the Marines who struggled for four days to take the mountain, it was just a dirty little pile of volcanic ash, infested with enemy infantry concealed with machine guns and artillery in caves, but on February 23, 1945, the Marines reached the top.
They raised the Stars and Stripes, but there was a problem. The flag was too small for the Marines and Navy down below to see, so they raised a second flag, a bigger one.
Rosenthal saw the bigger flag going up out of the corner of his eye, he later recalled, and snapped the camera, having no idea what the shot looked like.
He said it was like shooting a football game, that you never know what you have on film.
They did not have digital cameras in those days, of course, so there was no instant replay, no way to check it in the field.
Rosenthal did not know for days afterward what the picture looked like, but by then the whole world knew.
"Millions saw the picture before I did," he recalled years later.
It was a picture of six combat hardened, weary men stretching and bracing to raise their nation's flag.
It was picture that not only electrified but inspired that nation's people.
History is sometimes a pure chance meeting at an iconic moment, and those who experience it have no idea what it is at the time.
Rosenthal remembered that he almost did not to go to the summit that morning. A flag had already been raised on the island, but he decided to go up anyway and found the Marines were raising the second flag.
Considering the photo became so important, it won him very little money. He did receive a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography and was remembered as the man who took the Iwo Jima picture, but he was uncomfortable with fame.
The money, the fame, meant little to him.
"What I see behind the photo is what it took to get up those heights, the kind of devotion to their country that those young men had, the sacrifices they made," he said.
That's what the Iwo Jima picture meant to Joe Rosenthal.
It inspired another photographer to lift the American spirit at a time when it needed a lift the most 56 years later, only it did not occur on some battle torn remote island far away.
It happened September 11, 2001 on Manhattan Island, New York City, when Thomas Franklin snapped the photo of three firemen raising the flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center.
Franklin said he saw similarities between his photo and the Iwo Jima shot, and so did the rest of the country.
Critics claimed that Rosenthal staged his photo, but a Marine photographer's film proved it was genuine, because a frame captured by the Marine camera is almost identical to Rosenthal's picture.
I can only hope that I get the chance to take a picture like he did, that my camera will be ready, that I will seize the moment, but such a picture comes once in a life time, once in a century.
Joe Rosenthal did not seek fame. It came to him, but he was very proud to become an Honorary Marine in his closing years because of the picture that became a memorial that honors the Corps and its members for all time.
Semper Fi, Joe.
(Jerry Gunn is a reporter for WDUN NEWS TALK 550, MAJIC 1029, SPORTS RADIO 1240 THE TICKET and AccessNorthGa.com.)
Ellie