Flags of Our Fathers

May 1, 2001
Newly adapted from a bestseller for adults, Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima by James Bradley with Ron Powers, adapted by Michael French, focuses on one of the most famous of war photographs: the image of six marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima. Bradley, son of one of those marines, investigates the lives (and deaths) of the six, closely examining their experiences to detail the brutal battle on the island, the contrast between the sense of victory projected by the photograph and the more ambiguous circumstances behind it, and the bond-raising value of the photo (and of its surviving subjects) to the Treasury Department. A photo insert adds to the immediacy of this memorable work.

May 1, 2000
Say "Iwo Jima," and what comes to mind? Most likely a famous photograph from 1945: six tired, helmeted Marines, fresh from a long, terrifying and bloody battle, work together to raise the American flag on Mount Suribachi. Bradley's father, John, was one of the six. In this voluminous and memorable work of popular history mixed with memoir, Bradley and Powers (White Town Drowsing) reconstruct those Marines' experiences, and those of their Pacific Theater comrades. The authors begin with the six soldiers' childhoods. Soon enough, bombs have fallen on Pearl Harbor, and by May '43 the young men have become proud leathernecks. Bradley and Powers incorporate accounts of specific battles, like "Hellzapoppin Ridge" (Bougainville, December '43), and pull in corps life and lore, from the tough-minded to the slightly silly, from mandatory penis inspections (medics checking for VD) to life in the pitch-dark of "Tent City No. 1." And they cover the strategy and tactics leading up to the awful battle for the island--the navy's disputed plans for offshore bombardment, cut at the last minute from 10 days to three; the 16 miles of Japanese underground tunnels, far more than Allied intelligence expected. A quarter of the book follows the fighting on Iwo Jima, sortie by sortie. The final chapters pursue the veterans' subsequent lives: Bradley and Powers set themselves against often-sanctimonious tradition, retrieving the stories of six more or less troubled individuals from the anonymity of heroic myth. A simple thesis emerges from all the detail worked into this touching group portrait, in a comment by John Bradley: "The heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who didn't come back." No reader will forget the lesson.

Starred review from May 1, 2001
Gr 7-10-The American flag being hoisted over Iwo Jima during World War II is a ubiquitous image, and students are repeatedly told that it represents the struggle of war and the triumph of freedom. Reading this magnificent book will make those concepts tangible. A son of one of the "flag raisers," Bradley tells the story of six young men, from different backgrounds and varying experiences, who came together at one moment during "America's most heroic battle" to be spontaneously immortalized by an Associated Press photographer. Solidly adapted from the adult bestseller (Bantam, 2000), this work builds from introductions to the men and the war to a narration of the bloody conquering of the important island, concluding with the celebrity-encouraged by FDR-that followed the picture's worldwide publication. The dramatic fighting, heroic behavior, and patriotic celebrations in which these half-dozen humble individuals played a role are all captured. The author's authoritative sources include the elder Bradley's papers and rare familial recounts of the experience, hundreds of interviews, and a visit to the site of the action. And while justly proud of his father and his country, Bradley strives for fairness and historical accuracy, pointing out that this was the second flag raised that day, the first having been taken down as a souvenir for an officer. History is thus made personally authentic in these pages. A book that deserves a place on school reading lists and in every library.-Andrew Medlar, Chicago Public Library, IL

Copyright 2001 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.