[0015-2222] THE FLAG THAT WAS RAISED TWICE – Companion Dossier (PDF)

Description

On February 23, 1945, forty Marines from E Company clawed their way up the sulfurous slopes of Mount Suribachi to raise an American banner over Iwo Jima. Hours later, senior brass demanded a replacement—a larger flag, clearly visible to naval observers offshore and suitable as a military trophy. When Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the iconic second raising, the Pentagon quickly spun battlefield reality into an unassailable myth. Behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning frame lay an immediate, calculated bureaucratic cover-up: an unposed combat snapshot supplanted, a vital initial patrol erased, and fallen Marines misidentified to satisfy the ravenous PR machinery of a nationwide war bond tour. This declassified dossier reconstructs the minute-by-minute timeline of Operation Detachment’s dual flag raisings. Featuring side-by-side photographic comparisons, official radio transcripts from the USS Missoula, after-action reports, and the suppressed testimony of Marine photographer Louis Lowery, this file strips away seventy years of patriotic mythology to expose how wartime high command knowingly institutionalized a lie.