The Battle of Iwo Jima, fought in the winter of 1945 on a rocky
island south of Japan, brought a ferocious slice of hell to
earth: in a month's time, more than 22,000 Japanese soldiers
would die defending a patch of ground a third the size of
Manhattan, while nearly 26,000 Americans fell taking it from
them.
The battle was a turning point in the war in
the Pacific, and it produced one of World War II's enduring
images: a photograph of six soldiers raising an American flag on
the flank of Mount Suribachi, the island's commanding high
point.
One of those young Americans was John
Bradley, a Navy corpsman who a few days before had braved enemy
mortar and machine-gun fire to administer first aid to a wounded
Marine and then drag him to safety. For this act of heroism
Bradley would receive the Navy Cross, an award second only to
the Medal of Honor.
Bradley, who died in 1994, never mentioned
his feat to his family. Only after his death did Bradley's son
James begin to piece together the facts of his father's heroism,
which was but one of countless acts of sacrifice made by the
young men who fought at Iwo Jima.
Flags of Our Fathers recounts the
sometimes tragic life stories of the six men who raised the flag
that February day--one an Arizona Indian who would die following
an alcohol-soaked brawl, another a Kentucky hillbilly, still
another a Pennsylvania steel-mill worker--and who became
reluctant heroes in the bargain. A strongly felt and
well-written entry in a spate of recent books on World War II,
Flags gives a you-are-there
depiction of that conflict's horrible arenas--and a moving
homage to the men whom fate brought there.
--Gregory McNamee
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