24-02-2025
Look Back: 80th anniversary of the American flag raising on Iwo Jima
Feb. 24—The front page of the Wilkes-Barre Record on Feb. 26, 1945, published what is the most patriotic picture in American history: the raising of the American flag on Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II.
"Five days, one hour and 30 minutes after American Marines of the Fifth Division waded across the black beaches of the southern end of this island, the American flag flew for the first time from the summit of the 566-foot crater of Suribachi Yama," reported the Record on Feb. 26, 1945.
History and Clint Eastwood's 2006 movie, "Flags of Our Fathers," have taught us a smaller American flag was initially raised but a military general wanted the smaller flag as a keepsake and had a much larger American flag raised in its place.
Today, digital pictures and videos can be instantaneously transferred by way of the internet and cell phones.
Back in 1945, pictures were taken on film that needed to be developed in dark rooms and videos were recorded on 8 and 16 mm film.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the American flag raising on Mount Suribachi by five Marines and one Navy corpsman that took place on Feb. 23, 1945. The patriotic picture of the flag raising was taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his iconic photograph.
The story of the Battle of Iwo Jima is widely known.
Years after I moved away from my childhood home on Boland Avenue in Hanover Township, I learned a fellow resident of the same street fought on Iwo Jima and the Pacific theater during World War II.
As kids racing bikes and building forts in the woods behind my childhood house, there was a man we knew as "old man Alex" who dug coal to heat his tiny wooden home. We also called him "Red" as he had a tint of red hair.
We kids enjoyed Alex's company. He would talk to us in the woods about the "old days" or stop by and talk to us whenever we hung out at the Lee Park Playground.
Alex was Alex Luckes, who was a captain of the Hanover Township football team his senior year in 1940 and played football at Duke University in North Carolina. It was in his sophomore year at Duke when Luckes enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in October 1942.
After extensive research on and newspaper archives, I learned Luckes was called for service in July 1943, and attached to the 1st Battalion, 13th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division based out of San Diego, Calif.
The 5th Marine Division took part in the Battle of Iwo Jima that began Feb. 16, 1945, and ended March 26, 1945.
Rosenthal's picture of the American flag raising, as widely reported, occurred on Feb. 23, 1945, several days after the Marine landing on Iwo Jima.
Luckes, whom I've previously written about in a 2020 Look Back, died June 20, 1996, and is buried in St. Mary's Cemetery in Hanover Township.
Reporter's note: I have a poster of Rosenthal's picture of the American flag raising in my basement home gym — the only poster hanging on the walls.
