Flags of Our Fathers (Google eBook)

James Bradley, Ron Powers

Random House Digital, Inc., Aug 29, 2006 - History - 562 pages

In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.

In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima—and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag.

Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful account of six very different young men who came together in a moment that will live forever.

To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered closed boxes of letters and photos. In Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of Easy Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island—an island riddled with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight to the last man.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened after the victory. The men in the photo—three were killed during the battle—were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley's father truly survived, displaying no copy of the famous photograph in his home, telling his son only: "The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back."

Few books ever have captured the complexity and furor of war and its aftermath as well as Flags of Our Fathers. A penetrating, epic look at a generation at war, this is history told with keen insight, enormous honesty, and the passion of a son paying homage to his father. It is the story of the difference between truth and myth, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human experience of war.


From the Hardcover edition.

What people are saying

Review: Flags of Our Fathers

User Review  - Deb Rankin-moore - Goodreads

I loved all of the research the author did on the biography of the six flag raisers. Riveting read! The fact that one of the flag raisers was a Wisconsin boy was poignant for me - felt very close to ...

Review: Flags of Our Fathers

User Review  - Glen Templeton - Goodreads

Amazing account of Iwa Jima. As a former Navy Corpsman myself, this was was especially interesting. I saw the movie too, but this has SO much more.

About the author

James Bradley is the son of John "Doc" Bradley, one of the six flagraisers. A speaker and a writer, he lives in Rye, New York.

Ron Powers is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He is the author of White Town Drowsing and Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain. He lives in Vermont.


From the Hardcover edition.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Flags of Our Fathers
• Authors: James Bradley, Ron Powers
• Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc., 2006
• ISBN: 0553902768, 9780553902761
• Length: 562 pages
• Subjects: History / Military / World War II