“Flags of Our Fathers” by James Bradley with Ron Powers is a book that is difficult to put down once you have started reading it. It grips one’s attention right at the beginning. Says the Library Journal, “(Bradley’s) gripping narrative, vivid descriptions and heartfelt style make this a powerful story of courage, humility, and tragedy...” Adds Stephen Ambrose, himself no mean writer of books on history, “The best battle book I ever read. These stories, from the time the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima enlisted, their training, and the landing and subsequent struggle, fill me with awe.” Ironically, the book, which was made into a film directed by Clint Eastwood, was turned down by 27 publishers over 25 months.

Bradley wrote the book because of a call, he says, from six boys from a distant past on a distant mountain. He writes, “In the spring of 1998, six boys called to me from half a century ago on a distant mountain and I went there...” The book is about the visit of the author and his family to that “distant mountain” and the life of the “six boys from a distant past...”

The mountain referred to is Mt. Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima in Japan. It was there that six soldiers raised the American flag during World War 11. Among them was the author’s father, John “Doc” Bradley (of Appleton, Wisconsin). The rest who were with him in raising the now iconic American flag included Franklin Sously (Hilltop, Kentucky), Harlon Block (Rio Grande Valley, Texas), Ira Hayes (Gila River Indian Reservation, Arizona), Rene Gagnon (Manchester, New Hampshire), and Mike Strank (Franklin Borough, Pennsylvania).

Unfortunately, only three of them survived the war — Bradley, Hayes and Gagnon — and were brought back to the United States to tour the country for the seventh war bond drive.

Their picture of raising the American flag taken by Joe Rosenthal “has gone on to be the most duplicated and reproduced photo ever taken.” It not only won the Pulitzer Prize, it also became the centerpiece of a bond drive that raised $26.3 billion, which was desperately needed to win the war in the Pacific.

The author visited Mt. Suribachi in April 1998 along with his mother Betty Van Gorp, brothers Steve, Mark and Joe and a Marine contingent which included military men and women. The author, his family and the accompanying delegation were flown to Iwo Jima from Okinawa by General Charles Krulak, Commandant of the Marine Corps.

He writes, “Accompanied by my mother, three of my brothers, and many military men and women, I ascended the 550-foot volcanic crater that was Mount Suribachi. My twenty-one-year-old father had made the climb on foot carrying bandages and medical supplies... I stood at its summit in a whipping wind that helped dry my tears. This was exactly where that American flag was raised on a February afternoon fifty-three years before. The wind had whipped on that day as well...”

They made a tour of the island. They visited the place where the elder Bradley had been wounded two weeks after the flag-raising. They also visited the beaches and took pictures of one another near the “X” that marks the spot of the actual raising. They also put down a plaque which read:

To John H. Bradley

Flagraiser Feb. 23, 1945

From His Family

After making a short talk, identifying the six involved in raising the American flag, the group sang the songs which John Bradley admitted to knowing — “Home on the Range” and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” After returning to the United States, the author began researching the six men who are in the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.

Writing about his father, who died a natural death in 1994, Bradley recalls what the latter had written in a note three days after the flag-raising: “It was the happiest moment of my life.” Yet, he hardly talked afterwards about his participation in raising the flag, stating that “I just happened to be there.” He hardly mentioned the Navy Cross and Purple Heart awarded to him and said that the real heroes were those “who did not come back.”

Bradley speculated that his father’s determined silence and discomfort on the subject of his role in the Battle of Iwo Jima was largely due to memories of his best friend, Ralph “Iggy” Ignatowski. In his own words, and only once, he briefly told his author — son what had happened to Iggy.

He said, “I have tried to block this out. To forget it. We could choose a buddy to go in with. My buddy was a guy from Milwaukee. We were pinned down in one area. Someone else fell injured and I ran to help out, and when I came back my buddy was gone. I couldn’t figure out where he was. I could see all around, but he wasn’t there. And nobody knew where he was.”

A few days later, someone said that his friend had been found. “They called me over because I was a corpsman. The Japanese had pulled him underground and tortured him. His fingernails... his tongue... It was terrible. I’ve tried hard to forget all this,” the author’s father said.

The Library Journal says of the book — “Bradley’s gripping narrative, vivid descriptions, and heartfelt style make this a powerful story of courage, humility and tragedy...This book packs both literary and historical punch.”