In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment
in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory,
the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who
raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the
immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and
indomitable will of America.
In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo
Jima--and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar
fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to
the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape
of hell itself, they raised a flag.
Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful
account of six very different young men who came together in a
moment that will live forever.
To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the
war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered
closed boxes of letters and photos. In Flags of Our Fathers, James
Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father
and the men of Easy Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo
Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic
battle for the Pacific's most crucial island--an island riddled
with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight
to the last man.
But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened
after the victory. The men in the photo--three were killed during
the battle--were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become
reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering.
Only James Bradley's father truly survived, displaying no copy of
the famous photograph in his home, telling his son only: "The real
heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back."
Few books ever have captured the complexity and furor of war and
its aftermath as well as Flags of Our Fathers. A penetrating, epic
look at a generation at war, this is history told with keen
insight, enormous honesty, and the passion of a son paying homage
to his father. It is the story of the difference between truth and
myth, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human
experience of war.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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