On the fifth day of the brutal Battle of Iwo Jima, a patrol scaled the 554-foot Mount Suribachi and raised a small flag, soon replaced by a larger one. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the second raising in a single frame that won the Pulitzer Prize and became the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.
The battle for Iwo Jima had barely begun—36 more days of fighting remained, and three of the six flag-raisers pictured would be dead within weeks—but the image Rosenthal snapped in 1/400th of a second became an instant sensation back home. He didn't even know he'd captured anything special until he saw the developed film days later.
The photograph's power lay partly in its ambiguity: no faces are visible, just anonymous American strength straining against a pole, which let it stand for every soldier rather than six specific men. The Treasury Department used it to sell the seventh war bond drive, raising over $26 billion.
Survivors Ira Hayes, John Bradley, and Rene Gagnon were pulled from combat and sent on bond tours, a surreal transition that Hayes in particular never adjusted to, later dying of alcoholism. Mount Suribachi itself, an extinct volcanic cone, gave Japanese gunners commanding views over the invasion beaches, which is exactly why the Marines needed it captured first.