Flying the Flag

With MacArthur’s return to the Philippines grabbing the headlines, the navy made renewed efforts to publicize its battles in the central Pacific. Photojournalists were the biggest beneficiaries, with access to a new laboratory on Guam and fewer censorship rules. During the bloody battle on Iwo Jima, these improvements reaped a large reward, with the prompt publication of Joe Rosenthal’s famous picture of the flag raising on the top of Mount Suribachi. During the next campaign, on Okinawa, the correspondents struggled to achieve the same impact. Ernie Pyle, the most prominent of them, fell to an enemy bullet, while the survivors initially had to compete for front-page space with the end of the war in Europe.