One of my goals is to read more history books, I have a ton of them sitting on my bookshelf and I just need to get better about grabbing one of them when I go looking for the next book to read. I have had Flags of our Fathers sitting on the book shelf for quite sometime, but when I saw the movie was coming out I wanted to make sure I read it before I saw the movie. (I finished the book a couple months ago and still haven’t seen the movie yet)
James Bradley was in a unique position to write this book since his father was one of the flag raisers captured in the photo on the cover of the book. This book is more about the people in this photo than about the actual battle of Iwo Jima, although there is a great deal about the battle as well.
Most of the books I have read about World War II have focused on the European theater so it was refreshing to read a book about the Pacific theater. The book starts out detailing the lives of the six men in this photo before the war. It goes on to talk about their path into the military, their role in the invasion, and then the circumstances that took them to the top of that mountain on Iwo Jima. The book then goes on to detail what happens to each of the different men in the photo, and most of the stories don’t end very well. I am sure there are plenty of books out there that do a much better job of covering the battle of Iwo Jima itself, but this book is unique in that it looks at the battle (and all of WWII) through the eyes of a number of individual men who were brought together for a press photo that changed their lives and inspired America.
Now I just need to see the movie.
-James
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