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Tom Brokaw has started something. His book "The Greatest Generation" stormed the best-seller lists two years ago, celebrating the American fighting men of World War II. Now, in "Flags of Our Fathers," James Bradley (with Ron Powers) celebrates six particular soldiers, the guys who raised the flag over Iwo Jima in the famous picture by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press. One of the six was Bradley's father.
The battle for Iwo Jima, a tiny volcanic island guarding the flight path to Japan, was one of the bloodiest of the Pacific war. Nearly a third of the 80,000 American troops who fought there, mostly Marines, were killed or wounded. Of the 22,000 Japanese defenders, about 21,000 died. It was nasty, treacherous, piecemeal slaughter: the Japanese cut down the Americans from concealed bunkers and a vast network of hidden tunnels; the Americans incinerated the Japanese with flame-throwers and dumped grenades and gasoline into their lairs.
Bradley spent four years tracing the movements of his six men through the carnage, and the book contains wonderful details of battle from the soldier's-eye view. But the central tale is the story of the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi and how it affected the men in the photograph. The event itself was of no importance: another flag had already been raised and this one was simply a replacement, put up because it was bigger. The flag-raisers were in no danger--they had walked up the mountain unopposed. And the flag did not signify victory: elsewhere on the island the battle raged on for an additional three weeks.
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Three of the six flag-raisers were killed on Iwo Jima. President Roosevelt ordered the three survivors home to take part in a huge cross-country tour to sell war bonds. This plunged them into a new ordeal--of sudden fame and non-stop glad-handing. They were hailed as heroes for an episode they knew was trivial. One of them, a Pima Indian named Ira Hayes, took refuge in heavy drinking and died in an alcoholic scuffle 10 years later. Another, a New Hampshire boy named Rene Gagnon, thought his celebrity would bring him job offers; it didn't. The third, Bradley's father, John, was the only one who handled the situation well: for the rest of his life he put Iwo Jima out of his mind. Only after he died in 1994 did his family discover that for his bravery as a medical corpsman, he had won the Navy Cross. He became, poignantly, a funeral director.
The book has some serious flaws. Its writing style is pitched at about the level of 15-year-old schoolboys. The story doesn't pick up interest until page 123, when the invasion force begins to steam toward Iwo Jima. But once the Marines start landing, you will find yourself pinned down.
Flags of Our FathersJames Bradley
with Ron Powers
(Bantam)
376 pages. $24.95
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