Who Were the Iwo Jima Flag Raisers? How Two Amateur Historians Corrected the Record

By Todd DePastino

On February 23, 1945, five days into the Battle of Iwo Jima, a patrol of U.S. Marines raised an American flag atop Mount Suribachi. A few hours later, a second, larger flag was raised, and Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the moment in what would become the most famous American war photograph of the twentieth century.

For seventy years, Americans believed…