Joe Rosenthal’s famous Associated Press photograph, taken during the American victory over Japan on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945, became one of the most iconic images of World War II by showing 5 U.S. Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi. After the brutal 36-day battle, Admiral Chester Nimitz said that on Iwo Jima “Uncommon valor was a common virtue.” Of the 27 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded to U.S. armed forces who fought there, 22 went to Marines and 5 to Navy personnel, including corpsmen, and 14 were awarded posthumously. The U.S. suffered 26,038 casualties, including 6,821 dead, while only 1,083 of the 22,785 Japanese defenders survived. The captured airfields became vital to the American war effort by serving as emergency bases for B-29 bombers returning from missions over Japan. Felix de Weldon, sculptor of the national Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, created two larger-than-life monuments for the 7th War Bond Tour of 1945, and a third and final cast from the original mold was commissioned in 1964 by the Rosen Brothers and dedicated in 1965 in Cape Coral. Originally placed at Tarpon Point’s Rose Garden as a promotional tool for real estate sales during the 1960s, it later suffered neglect and vandalism after the Rosen Brothers went bankrupt in the 1970s. In 1980, Michael Geml of North First Bank hired de Weldon to restore and move it to the bank’s Cape Coral property, where it remained until 1997. It was restored again after relocation to ECO Park Preserve in 1997, underwent a third major restoration in 2011, and remains the only one of de Weldon’s original casts in civilian possession.

Photo: Joe Rosenthal/ US Marine Corps (photo courtesy of the National Archives at College Park)

Photo: Tim Fillmon

Photo: Tim Fillmon

Photo: Tim Fillmon

Whiskey Creek, Florida · USA