A VIEW OF MOUNT SURIBACHI

Occurring on the same day that Hershel W. Williams earned his Medal of Honor, Mount Suribachi was captured on the morning of 23 February 1945. A photograph of six US Marines raising the American flag was taken by the photojournalist Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press and the resulting picture gripped the public imagination. It even prompted US Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal to say, “The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years.”

Although Rosenthal’s photograph was taken on 23 February, the famous flag was actually the second to be raised