Joe Rosenthal dies at 94; war photo still stirs emotions

NEW YORK — The most famous photograph of World War II, and maybe of all time, rests in a box in a locked steel cage at The Associated Press photo library in New York. The death of Joe Rosenthal, the man who took it, was an occasion to bring it out for a rare examination.

Donning white cotton gloves, AP chief photo librarian Charles Zoeller opened the box marked "Iwo Jima 1945, Joe Rosenthal." Inside were 31 4-by-5 negatives — including The Picture — from the Speed Graphic camera that Rosenthal carried through one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War.

Zoeller flipped the switch on a light board and held up a negative — the black-and-white image of five Marines and one Navy corpsman pushing a flagpole upward in what would become the ultimate symbol of that conflict.

The photo was snapped Feb. 23, 1945, on the top of 545-foot Mount Suribachi, the dormant volcano at the southern end of Iwo Jima — "Sulfur Island" in English — as Marines battled to dislodge entrenched Japanese forces.

Made famous by the shot, Rosenthal later left AP and worked 35 years as a photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle. He died Sunday at 94 of natural causes at an assisted-living facility in suburban Novato, Calif., said his daughter, Anne Rosenthal.

Rosenthal's iconic photo became the model for the Iwo Jima Memorial near Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The memorial, dedicated in 1954 and known officially as the Marine Corps War Memorial, commemorates the Marines who died taking the Pacific island in World War II.

Zoeller noted that in recent years, the Marine Corps has sent small groups of officers to spend a day at various news organizations, a program designed to familiarize combat leaders with the media they may encounter in the field.

At the AP, a final stop at the photo library has become the highlight of the yearly visits.

"The Marines see that shot and sometimes they burst into tears," Zoeller said. "It is really a Marine Corps icon, part of their culture, and it's a very moving experience for them to see that actual negative."

The image, which won Rosenthal a Pulitzer Prize, has been called the most-published photograph in history. It shows the second raising of the flag that day on Mount Suribachi. The first flag had been deemed too small.