[今日美国] Six Men, a World War, a Pacific Island, and an Image for All Time

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By Paul Thompson
2008-5-25

VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember with Faith Lapidus.
This Monday is Memorial Day in the United States. The holiday honors the memory of the nation's military dead.
VOICE TWO:
One way to preserve a memory is with a camera. This week on our program, we tell the story of a famous photograph from World War Two. It led the sculptor Felix de Weldon to create one of the largest free-standing bronze statues in the world.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Our story is about one moment in time. Really, one-four-hundredth of a second. That is the amount of time it took Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal to capture a historic image on film.
The photograph shows six men and an American flag during a battle in World War Two. Joe Rosenthal took it on February twenty-third, nineteen forty-five, on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima. Japanese forces held the island. American Marines were trying to capture it.
On the fourth day of battle, Marines fought to the top of Mount Suribachi, the tallest mountain on Iwo Jima. A small American flag was sent to the top. The Marines placed the flagpole in the ground.
VOICE TWO:
But the small flag could not be seen clearly far below. Commanding officers ordered the Marines to replace it with a much larger one. Joe Rosenthal wanted to make a picture of the event. So he took his camera and began to climb slowly up the mountain.
When he reached the top, Marines were tying the larger flag to a heavy pole. Joe Rosenthal backed away from the group and began talking to another photographer.
A minute later, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. "There it goes!" he said. He swung his camera up, following the movement of the flag, and pressed the button that took the picture.