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 flag-raising on Iwo Jima. |
Eastwood's film, Bradley's book both monumental
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
The story of the
most reproduced photograph in American history--the flag raising
at Iwo Jima in February of 1945 by five Marines and a Navy corpsman--was
captured in a stirring 2000 book called "Flags of Our Fathers"
(Bantam) by James Bradley and Ron Powers.
Historian Stephen Ambrose, who made the 506th Parachute Infantry
Regiment of Normandy and Bastogne famous as the Band of Brothers
called Bradley’s Iwo Jima story, “The best battle book
I ever read.”
James Bradley is the son of John (Doc) Bradley, one of the six
men who were captured in Joe Rosenthal’s Associated Press
photograph.
When Rosenthal died earlier this year the photograph was printed
repeatedly again across American newspapers and shown frequently
on television.
Clint Eastwood, at age 76, has put Bradley’s book on film
and "Flags of Our Fathers" may be the best war film
ever made and the most brilliant directorial mission of Eastwood’s
career.
When I was a kid we walked a few blocks in Brooklyn to see the
“moving pictures.” A good one, especially a tear jerker
of the "Gone With The Wind" ilk, would get the highest
family and neighborhood accolade, a “moving moving picture.”
We loved to say that.
"Flags of Our Fathers" is one of the best of the “moving
moving pictures” I have ever seen.
It was incredibly difficult for Bradley, a Westchester, New York
advertising writer, to capture the story of his father and the
other five flag raisers--Ira Hayes, Harlon Block, Rene Gagnon,
Franklin Sousley and Mike Strank--in print.
Only Bradley’s father, John, had lived to the age of 70.
Hayes and Gagnon survived Iwo Jima but died early of alcohol
and depression. The other three were killed in combat on the
five mile wide island after the flag raising photo became part
of American history.
John Bradley died of a stroke in 1994 after raising eight children,
running a successful funeral business in his home town of Antigo,
Wisconsin and keeping his own counsel about the flag raising
and the bitter after events.
James Bradley began his book project after rummaging through
his father’s collected scrapbooks, articles, medals and
letters.
Recreating the lives and deaths of the other five flag raisers
was a far more difficult chore. It took half a dozen years before
it all could be put together in this emotional, dramatic, honest,
revealing book.
Eastwood, unlike other film makers, stayed with Bradley’s
research and descriptions. He captured the men as they really
were and described the torture all of them suffered in one of
the brutal combat operations of World War II and the far more
brutal post-war experiences as American “heroes.”
“We weren’t heroes,” Doc Bradley said of his time
on the island. “The only heroes were the guys who died there.”
Bradley first and Eastwood in the film clearly explain and analyze
the furor surrounding the photo.
Was it posed? Was it a fake? How were these flag raisers picked?
Why were the three combat survivors sent home? Did the government
use them and abuse them? Why weren’t they able to deal with
their sudden fame? Why did Ira Hayes, an American Indian, have
to undergo so much prejudice and pressure for the simple fact
of being one of the selected six?
All of these complicated and confusing questions are dealt with
clearly in the book and carefully in Eastwood’s film.
One of the most intriguing issues of the event is the reluctance
of Doc Bradley to ever discuss with his family and friends the
flag raising, its aftermath or the combat he saw on Iwo Jima.
Tom Brokaw opened up a lot of World War II tongues in his masterful
book "The Greatest Generation." as people in their
70s, 80s and 90s began talking for the first time of combat experiences
in Europe and the Pacific from 1941-1945. Unlike the scarred
veterans of Vietnam and Iraq, the flag raisers at Iwo Jima were
part of a massive enlistment of servicemen.
“What’s to talk about?” an old uncle of mine,
who survived Bastogne, once said. “Every kid in the neighborhood
was in the war.”
Now, so few are in the war. Only the families of the dead are
really touched by Baghdad.
James Bradley and the Eastwood film carefully explored the relationship
of fighting men in combat. They don’t do heroic things or
drop on unexploded grenades for their country. They do it for
each other.
Two of the most touching scenes in the film explore that ideal.
Hayes travels far to explain to one farm family father that it
is his late son in the photograph, not another family who had
claimed credit for their son being there.
Doc Bradley leaves his Wisconsin home to explain how one of his
own buddies, not a flag raiser but simply a proud Marine, died
at Iwo Jima. Ralph “Iggy” Ignatowski was captured and
tortured by the Japanese as their fanatic attempts at holding
Iwo Jima, sacred Japanese ground, led to such unspeakable cruelty.
John Wayne once made a farcical, fictional film called "The
Sands of Iwo Jima." Doc Bradley even aided in the making
of the film, something he always regretted.
James Bradley wrote the true story of Iwo Jima, the men who fought
there and the price the flag raisers paid for their accidental
connection with history.
Eastwood has captured all of that on film and now youngsters
asking grandfathers-- “Grandpa, did you really fight in
World War II? What was it like?”--can see in Eastwood’s
film what is was really like.
I think James Bradley is a hero for writing this book and I think
Clint Eastwood is a moving picture hero for putting it on the
screen.
©2006 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The photo is courtesy of the official "Flags
of Our Fathers" website. This column first posted Oct. 30,
2006.
READ JOHN
STANLEY'S COLUMN ON IWO JIMA FROM JULY, 2000,
BY CLICKING HERE: IWO JIMA
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