Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley (Bantam Books,  2000) ***

 

Stephen Ambrose, famous for his own books on warfare, said this book was “The best battle book I ever read.”  It certainly is one of the best that I have read, but it is more than a battle book; it is the fascinating story of six men whose lives converged atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima in 1945 when each of them helped raise the American Flag--and were captured in one of the most famous photographs of all time.  James Bradley is the son of one of those men, a Navy corpsman attached to a Company of Marines.

 

The account of the fighting on Iwo Jima, and what led up to this, and why it was so important, is a major part of the book.  The ferocity of that battle and the horrible casualties inflicted on both Americans and Japanese make it one of the bloodiest battles in our history.  It was truly awesome.  There are few battles in that war or any war where the combatants can match the courage, endurance and heroism of the Marines who took that Island.  More medals for valor were awarded for action on Iwo Jima than in any battle in the history of the United  States (twenty-seven of the eighty-four Medals of Honor awarded to Marines in World War II were awarded in this single battle).  The battle story will leave you exhausted and incredulous.

 

That having been said, there is another aspect of the book that is thoroughly engrossing in a very different way.  It is the story of those six men, all with very different backgrounds, from the time of their boyhood until the battle on Iwo Jima—and the story of what happened to them after the flag-raising photograph became famous.  I’ll tell you up front that three of them were killed within two weeks as the battle for Iwo Jima continued.  The other three were assigned to a war savings bond tour to help raise money for the anticipated land invasion of Japan.  How they dealt with this fame and the mantle of national heroism is the subject of the latter part of the book.  None of those six survive today, but Bradley’s book, beautifully researched and written, is a meaningful monument to them as well as to the others who fought on that island and helped to significantly shorten and win the war.