What impact did the Iwo Jima picture have when it was released?

Question

How did the public react? Why?

What kinds of controversal questios or issues were raised by the image? Why?

If you could help that could be great thanks. =)

Answer 1

It was a boost to the government recruiting and raising finance for the war although it's always puzzled me why it took so many marines to raise one small flag.

Answer 2

The photo was seen as an image of victory and produced a great feeling of patriotic satisfaction across America.  Joe Rosenthal, who took the picture, won a Pulitzer Prize for it.  After the flag was secured in position Rosenthal gathered the nine Marines on the summit for a posed photo under the flag.  Three of those men died before fighting on the island ended.  Then the survivors were sent on a bond tour.

One of the survivors was a Pima Indian named Ira Hayes.  Like many veterans, he had a bad case of survivor's guilt, probably PTSD, and could not handle the publicity and the hero status, which he felt he did not merit - again, like many vets, who thought the real heroes were in the cemeteries..  He became an alcoholic and died of exposure in Arizona in 1955.

Periodically the US Army had sought to kill off the Marine Corps politically, and the Navy was also facing a challenge on the aviation front, as the soon-to-be Air Force leaders sought to end naval aviation.  The Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, was on a ship off Iwo and he had decided the previous night that he wanted to go ashore and witness the final stage of the fight for the mountain. Now, under a stern commitment to take orders from Marine Major General Holland M. "Howlin' Mad" Smith, the secretary was churning ashore in the company of the blunt, earthy general. Their boat touched the beach just after the flag went up, and the mood among the high command turned jubilant. Gazing upward, at the red, white, and blue speck, Forrestal remarked to Smith: "Holland, the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years."

There was a little controversy because this was actually the second flag raised there that day.  A Marine officer had carried a small flag ashore, and when the patrol was dispatched to the top of Suribachi he handed it to the sergeant who was to lead the group.  They raised it attached to a piece of pipe they found on the top, but it was hardly visible.  Someone then borrowed a large flag from an LST on the beach, and Rosenthal arrived just as the two were being exchanged.  This led to claims that Rosenthal had the flag raised a second time, as a staged event, so he could photograph it, but he really just got lucky and snapped a photo just as the second flag was going up.

Answer 3

It and the surviving soldiers in the picture toured the U.S. to sell War Bonds a week after it was taken.  The battle for the island was still going on.

Answer 4

All Americans were very proud. Back then nationalism and patriotism was an extremely good thing. Boys lied about their ages so they could go to war. People were proud to be called an American. Not Italian-American, or Mexican-American (and all the rest) but just an American. Who spoke English and were proud of what they learned.