|
|
 |
 |
|
 Free Movie Screenings to CHOKE
Search Contact Us |
|
|||
"Flags Of Our Fathers" First Look In Theaters October 20, 2006 
It is the most memorable photograph of World War II, among the greatest pictures ever taken. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for photography and one of the most-reproduced images in the history of photography, the picture has inspired postage stamps, posters, the covers of countless magazines and newspapers, and even the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia. "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima," a picture taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945 depicts five Marines and one Navy Corpsman raising the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi. The image served as a counterpoint for one of the most vicious battles of the war: the fight to take Iwo Jima, a desolate island of black sand barely eight square miles that would prove a tipping point in the Pacific campaign. Lasting more than a month, the fight was a bloody, drawn-out conflict that might have turned the American public against the war entirely, had it not been for the photo, which was taken and published five days into the battle. The photograph made heroes of the men in the picture as the three surviving flag-raisers were returned to the U.S. and made into props in the government's Seventh War Bond Tour. Uncomfortable with their new celebrity, the flag-raisers considered the real heroes to be the men who died on Iwo Jima; still, the American public held them up as the best America had to offer, the supermen who conquered the Japanese... ...and then, just as quickly as it had arrived, the glory faded. For two of the surviving flag-raisers, life became a series of compromises and disappointments; for the third, happiness came only by shutting off his war experiences and rarely speaking of them ever again. "Flags of Our Fathers" is a human drama of friendship and love, sacrifice and manipulation, set against the violent conflict of the battle of Iwo Jima. Two-time Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood focuses equally on the war and home, crosscutting between the viciousness of the battle and the manufactured propaganda campaign and careful manipulation of the image that followed - issues that remain prevalent today. As "Flags of Our Fathers" shows how the photograph became the very beginning of celebrity worship, the film questions our need to create and celebrate heroes, sometimes at a cost. See the Complete 2006 Movie Release Schedule Behind The Scenes
Eastwood was initially attracted to the project after reading the best-selling book Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers. Bradley is the son of John Bradley, the Navy Corpsman in the photograph. Although James Bradley knew that his father had been one of the flag-raisers on Iwo Jima, the war had been a taboo subject in their family. (In fact, James Bradley did not even know that his father had been awarded the Navy Cross, the second-highest honor a sailor can receive, for his actions on Iwo Jima.) Eastwood felt that a project that focused on both the events that led up to the flag-raising and what happened to the men after they returned home would pose an exciting challenge for him as a director. “It turned out that DreamWorks had bought the property. I mentioned to Steven Spielberg that I liked the property very much, and I just left it hanging in the air like that,” says Eastwood. “Then, a couple of years ago, I ran into Steven at a function and he said, ‘Why don’t you come over and do the project? You direct it and I’ll produce it with you.’ So I said, ‘OK, I’ll do that.’” Spielberg – who made a memorable WWII film with “Saving Private Ryan,” for which he won the Oscar® for best director – says that Eastwood’s remarkable career and filmmaking principles left no question that the film was in good hands. “Over the three and a half decades since I first met Clint, it has been wonderful to see the range, confidence, and mastery of his work keep growing,” he says. “His body of work – in the sheer variety of its themes and moods – has no comparisons in the modern movie world. It has been equally wonderful to see the world offer Clint its acclaim and affection for his work and recognize in Clint an artistry that no one has ever heard him claim for himself. Maybe that’s the most wonderful thing of all about this story – watching Clint remain the same man he’s always been; that is to say, totally unimpressed with himself. ‘Lessness is bestness’ he likes to say-- and that applies especially to his own ego and his dependence on trust. Trust – in his cast, in his crew—reflects Clint’s own trust in himself, in his own instincts, whether he’s casting or choosing material or setting up a shot.” The screenplay is by William Broyles, Jr. and Paul Haggis from James Bradley’s book. The book was published in 2000 by Bantam Books and became nothing short of a sensation. It spent 46 weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list, including six weeks at #1. Bradley was inspired to write the book after his father’s death; realizing that he knew only that his father had been a flag-raiser and nothing else, he began interviewing the families of the other flag-raisers. “I never set out to write a book – I set out to find out why my dad was silent,” says Bradley. “I decided to write the book when I realized that everyone knows the photo, but nobody knows the story.” In the end, Bradley says, his goal was to break down the hero myths about the men in the picture. According to Bradley, because of the way the photo is shot, with every man’s face obscured, it is easy to think of the subjects of the picture as supermen; instead, of course, they’re everyday people. “To me, the beauty of the photo is that they are us – six ordinary Americans, doing their duty.” Three of those ordinary American boys would die performing their duty in the days after the photo was taken. For the other three, life became a series of challenges and disappointments. Ryan Phillippe stars as Doc Bradley, the Navy Corpsman who was called upon to help the Marines raise the flag. Of the three surviving flag-raisers, only Bradley was able to piece together a successful life after the war – and even he was plagued by nightmares and hallucinations. “When all you have is the picture, you bring all of your preconceptions with you,” says Ryan Phillippe. “Of course we see these men as heroes, because we need to put people on pedestals, to make them stand for something. This film is a chance to see things from the other side, how people who did heroic things see themselves.” Jesse Bradford plays Rene Gagnon. With doubts about his fighting abilities, Gagnon was pressed into service as a runner and was lucky enough to have been the man ordered to bring the flag to the top of Mt. Suribachi. Gagnon – unlike Bradley and Hayes – attempted to cash in on his newfound celebrity, but the experience left him bitter. The jobs he had been promised by zealous men in the government and business didn’t materialize, and he worked menial jobs until his death in 1979. Bradford says, “This was a time before celebrity culture, but these three guys really did become famous in a way that hadn’t really happened before. For 6 months or so, these guys were three of the most famous people in America. They went from a war zone – shooting at other human beings and watching their friends die – to a situation where everybody knew their name. That had to be difficult to reconcile.” Adam Beach, previously the star of “Smoke Signals” and “Windtalkers,” plays Ira Hayes. Hayes’s story is a tragic one; unable to get over the horrors of war and uncomfortable with what he felt was an undeserved position as a national hero, Hayes descended into alcoholism and found himself in and out of jail. In 1955, he died of exposure. His heartbreaking story was told in song, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” written by Peter LaFarge and performed by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and others, and on film, in 1961’s “The Outsider,” starring Tony Curtis as Hayes. “Though ‘The Outsider’ wasn’t a bad little film, we were aware from the very beginning that we wanted a real Native American to play Ira Hayes,” says Eastwood. Beach notes that despite his position as one of the industry’s leading Native American actors, he is often asked to play a role as “the stereotypical stoic Indian,” he says. “Ira’s not like that – this is a complex human being with real emotions. My favorite scene in the movie is when Ira meets President Truman – I think it’s important for the younger generation of Native Americans to see that we have our heroes. We did our part to make America what it is today.” The story of the flag-raisers has inspired countless tributes over the years; in 1949, John Wayne starred in “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” a fictionalized account of the battle. Of course, “Flags of Our Fathers” delves deeper into the story than ever before; what’s more, it was the opportunity to portray a multifaceted drama that first attracted Eastwood to the project. “Especially for someone 19, 20 years old, these characters are experiencing a very complex set of emotions,” says Eastwood. “I think they all felt that they had been taken out of the war and left a job undone. Still, they also felt they had a different job to do and they did it.” ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH
“Everybody has their own idea about what makes the photograph special,” says Clint Eastwood. “On one level, it’s guys doing some work – raising a pole – and that may be how the six guys in the picture saw it themselves. But in 1945, it symbolized the war effort.” The famous picture, taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, actually depicts the second flag-raising on Iwo Jima. After the invasion on the February 19th, the Marine fifth division began the attempt to capture Mt. Suribachi. By the fifth day, the American forces had suffered many casualties, but had also forced the Japanese to retreat into caves on the island. That morning, they raised a small American flag on top of the mountain as a signal that it had fallen. As the story goes, the secretary of the Navy, who wanted it as a souvenir for himself, demanded the flag. The marines were ordered to take it down and Marine runner Rene Gagnon was instructed to carry up another, larger flag, to raise in its place. Gagnon climbed to top of the mountain, where he found Marines Michael Strank, Harlon Block, Ira Hayes, and Franklin Sousley, who had spent the morning laying a telephone line to the top of the mountain. They needed to find something large to use for a pole, and found an old Japanese water pipe. Because of the weight of the pipe, the Marines needed six men to lift it, and asked for the help of Navy Corpsman John Bradley. Rosenthal, aware of what was going on, put down his camera and began piling rocks that he could stand on to gain a better vantagepoint. Realizing he was about to miss his shot, he picked up his camera, and pressed the shutter release. He did not use the viewfinder. One four-hundredth of a second later, history was made. “When you get a picture like that, you don’t come away saying you got a great shot,” wrote Rosenthal in Collier’s magazine ten years later. “You don’t know.” Indeed, it would be some time before Rosenthal knew he’d captured something lasting, as he had sent his film to Guam to be developed. When AP photo editor John Bodkin saw the picture, he immediately radiophotoed the picture to New York. Seventeen and one-half hours after Rosenthal snapped the picture, it was on the AP wire – an astonishingly fast turnaround time. It would be five or six days before Rosenthal would see his now-famous photograph. Like the surviving men in his picture, Rosenthal became a celebrity. Initially classified 4-F by the Selective Service (and thus not eligible for military duty) because of poor eyesight, Rosenthal was reclassified 2-AF (essential deferment) because – according to a Time magazine article from the time – the picture entitled him “to a classification better than 4-F.” Still, there was some controversy. A few days after the now-famous photo hit the front pages of newspapers across the country, a reporter asked Rosenthal if he had staged the shot. Rosenthal, thinking that the reporter was referring to a different, obviously posed picture of Marines cheering with the flag, said, “Sure.” The fact that the picture chronicles the second flag-raising of the day also added to the confusion, and for the next fifty years, Rosenthal was accused of manufacturing an image that he’d seen earlier. To help handle requests for interviews and appearances, the AP set up a “Rosenthal desk.” Rosenthal met President Truman, received a bonus of a year’s salary in War Bonds from the AP, and won the Pulitzer Prize. Rosenthal died in August 2006 at the age of 94. In an obituary in the New York Times, Richard Goldstein praised the photographer’s most famous work, writing, “The triumphant portrait, representing the first seizure by American troops of territory governed as part of the Japanese homeland, struck a tremendous emotional chord on the home front and resonated deeply as a symbol of the diversity in American life.” For Rosenthal, it was clear who the heroes were. In the Collier’s article, he commented, “…[O]f all the elements that went into the making of this picture, the part I played was the least important. To get that flag up there, America’s fighting men had to die on that island and on other islands and off the shores and in the air. What difference does it make who took the picture? I took it, but the Marines took Iwo Jima.” ABOUT THE CAST
“Flags of Our Fathers” focuses on the experiences of the three surviving servicemen – Marines Gagnon and Hayes and Navy Corpsman Bradley – in war and after they returned home. With the government eager to cash in on their celebrity, the men toured the country to raise money for victory as part of the Seventh War Loan Drive. The roles are played by Ryan Phillippe (Bradley), Jesse Bradford (Gagnon), and Adam Beach (Hayes). For Phillippe, an emotional connection to the material attracted him to the role. “My family has a deep military history,” he says. “My father was in the Navy during Vietnam, and my uncles served there as well. Both my grandfathers fought during World War II. To be able to pay respect to them is a huge responsibility and an honor. “John Bradley isn’t a complicated man – he is honest, simple, and straightforward,” says Phillippe, describing his role. “There’s a great freedom in playing a man like that, because he doesn’t lie, doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not. I felt a strong responsibility to make sure he was portrayed in the most honest and complete manner possible; he was a great man. “I met his son, James Bradley, who wrote the book Flags of Our Fathers,” continues Phillippe. “It was strange for me to introduce myself to someone by saying I’d be portraying his father, but he was very enthusiastic and thought I was a good choice.” Aside from his emotional connection to the role, Phillippe’s greatest challenge was to portray accurately the medical procedures that were James Bradley’s job as a Corpsman. “I learned how to do tourniquets, pressure bandages, and slings. I had a training dummy that I would take to my hotel room to practice – which was an odd experience for the people working there,” he laughs. Jesse Bradford’s Rene Gagnon could not be more different from Phillippe’s Doc Bradley. As expressive as Bradley is taciturn, as outgoing as Bradley is introverted, Gagnon is the serviceman who (at first) cultivates the fame that comes with the bond tour and helps to coerce the others to go along with it. “Rene was 19 when all this happened to him,” says Bradford. “He was something of a mama’s boy, maybe not quite cut out for war. On the other hand, he was also a kid trying to make good – he did everything that was asked of him and he was certainly tough enough to be a Marine, which is more than I can say for myself,” he laughs. After the bond tour, Gagnon experiences a rude awakening. “He took to celebrity – plus, his girlfriend’s enthusiasm about it had a big influence on him,” says Bradford. “He’s a moth to the flame, and he gets burned a bit. After the bond tour, he tries to trade on his fame, but he doesn’t realize that he’s been cast aside. He doesn’t know how to deal with what’s happened to him.” The actor says that the key responsibility he felt in portraying Gagnon was to try to show all sides of the character. “In some ways, there’s potential for the audience to come out of the movie thinking, ‘I don’t like this guy,’” says Bradford. “I talked a lot with his son about what kind of person he was. He was 19 years old, very much trying to do the right thing; I think he was fallible, but also a hero. Even though he’s more attracted to the celebrity than Ira or Doc is, I hope my portrayal of the character shows what a complex guy he was. I wanted to portray him in a positive light.” In addition to his talent as an actor, it didn’t hurt that Bradford bears an extraordinary physical resemblance to the real Rene Gagnon. “It’s just uncanny,” says Eastwood. “Ira’s a classic war hero, in many respects,” says Beach. “He was in three of the bloodiest battles in the South Pacific, and survived them all. All he wants is to be back in the field, with his boys, fighting side by side – he can’t reconcile being safe while his friends, his brothers, are still fighting the horrors of war. He doesn’t know how to deal with that. “Here he is with thousands cheering for him, and just the week before, he was watching his closest friends die,” says Adam Beach. “How could he do it? I couldn’t have… but he had a job to do. I think he thought if that’s what he had to do, then he was going to do it as best he could, and they raised more money than in any other drive.” Ryan Phillippe says that Strank’s on-field persona was mirrored on the set by Pepper, noting that Pepper is the only member of Eastwood’s cast to have also worked with producer Steven Spielberg on his WWII drama, “Saving Private Ryan.” “Mike Strank was 25 years old when he served on Iwo Jima; the other guys in his unit were 18 or 19,” says Phillippe. “He was the battle-hardened vet. The funny thing was, when Barry came on to play the role, he took on a similar role with us; he’d been in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and ‘We Were Soldiers.’ With his war film experience, he became the leader, teaching us what to do.” Some of this came about because, unlike some other films, “Flags” had no boot camp to train the actors. Of course, the actors did receive intense military instruction from the film’s four military advisors in a more condensed setting; according to Pepper, the best interests of the drama of the film were served by this approach. “I think it was very much Clint’s idea for us not to have boot camp training,” says Pepper. “I think he wanted the scenes to be much like life on the battlefield, young men thrown into uniform and into confusion. The emotions arise organically out of a situation like that.” Sgt. Strank died on March 1, 1945, from wounds received, it is presumed, due to “friendly fire” from an offshore Navy destroyer. Immediately following his death, Pfc. Harlon Block took control of the unit. Block had been Strank’s right-hand man and had looked up to the sergeant as a mentor; he, too, was killed, just hours after Strank, by mortar fire. Block was 20 years old. In early news reports on the photograph, Block was misidentified as another Marine (Hank Hansen, played in the film by Paul Walker); it was the testimony of Ira Hayes that finally brought the truth to light years later. Benjamin Walker, who plays Harlon Block, says that the work he put in before production to get in shape paid off during the shoot in Iceland. “I thought it was necessary to get into shape,” says Walker. “Harlon had been a running back for his high school football team – he was in great shape even before he got to boot camp. When we got to Iceland, there were a couple of times we were working nights, the temperature was five below, and we were on the beach with the wind beating us to death. I’d be running as fast as I could through the sand, barely getting anywhere. It was physically trying, but it was still a fantastic experience.” The final flag-raiser, Franklin Sousley, was killed near the end of the battle. On March 21, 1945, Sousley was shot in the back while strolling around the mostly secure island. Joseph Cross plays Sousley. “Franklin was a very fun-loving, happy-go-lucky guy,” says Cross, “perhaps a little more naïve than the others. He provided a lot of entertainment for his unit -- they picked on him a bit, but it was all good-natured. He was seen as the ‘younger brother,’ in a way.” Cross says that working with Eastwood was “one of the most incredible experiences of my life. He wants to see what you can do and with his calm, gentle quiet nature, he gives you the freedom to interpret the role in your own way. Because of that, you believe in Clint’s vision, and you want to give him the very best that you can.” ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
As always, Clint Eastwood has assembled a unit of dedicated professionals to bring his vision to the screen. Heading up this team as Eastwood’s collaborator is producer Robert Lorenz, who has overseen all aspects of development, production, post-production, marketing, and distribution for Eastwood’s five most recent films. In this complex production, Eastwood relied closely on casting director Phyllis Huffman, who passed away after a bout with cancer while the film was in post-production. “Phyllis was Clint’s close confidante,” says Lorenz. “With well over one hundred speaking roles in ‘Flags of Our Fathers,’ she had her work cut out for her; she auditioned literally hundreds of actors in New York and Los Angeles and everywhere in between.” During the production of the film, Eastwood relied on a team that has come to know well how the director operates. Michael Owens, who first worked with Eastwood on “Space Cowboys,” took on a central role during the production as visual effects supervisor and second unit director. Also serving on Eastwood’s production team were director of photography Tom Stern (5 films with Eastwood as DP, many more with him as chief lighting technician), costume designer Deborah Hopper (5 films with Eastwood as costume designer, 9 more Eastwood films in other roles), editor Joel Cox (20 films with Eastwood), and the late production designer Henry Bumstead (11 films with Eastwood). As a testament not only to their close working relationship but their friendship as well, Eastwood has dedicated the film to the memory of Huffman and Bumstead, as well as to the memory of Iwo Jima photographer Joe Rosenthal. Before his death at the age of 93, Bumstead said, “I still think it’s fun to sit down with a blank piece of paper, design a set, and see it built. That’s been my whole life; I get a lot of enjoyment from it.” The winner of two Oscars® and a nominee for two more, Bumstead’s collaboration with Eastwood began on “Joe Kidd,” in which Eastwood starred, and “High Plains Drifter,” Eastwood’s second film as a director. Though Eastwood wanted Bumstead “to go steady with him” (in Bumstead’s words) at that point, Bumstead could not pass up the opportunity to work with such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Martin Scorsese, and George Roy Hill (for whom Bumstead won the Academy Award® for his work on “The Sting”). It would not be until “Unforgiven” that Bumstead and Eastwood would reunite. “I can’t say enough about Clint,” he said. “Just the way he puts his camera on the sets shows we work together well: I know the way he likes to direct, how he likes to place the camera; I design the sets for that action, and he puts the camera in that spot. I think he’s the best director in the United States.” Before passing on, Bumstead completed his work designing the sets for “Letters from Iwo Jima,” Eastwood’s companion film to “Flags of Our Fathers.” Tom Stern served Clint Eastwood as chief lighting technician for more than 20 years – since 1982’s “Honkytonk Man” – before becoming his cinematographer in 2002. Their long history together serves him well. “I like to call Clint the most articulate non-verbal person I’ve ever met. I can read him pretty well. I’ll start by showing him an image or a book with pictures I’ve selected, and we’ll talk about those. To a large extent, Clint leaves things malleable until the last possible moment. He encourages everyone to be flexible and spontaneous.” Stern says that despite Eastwood’s reputation for making films with so few takes that they consistently wrap early, he never feels pressured. “In 25 years, I’ve never felt rushed,” he says. “We go very, very fast, and we shoot these films in record time, but during the day-to-day, things are very calm and quiet.” With this film, Stern notes, the human, emotional connection to the story is the most important element. “It’s a grand canvas, but it’s a very personal story,” he says. “There were many visual opportunities to let that out. The look of the film was to try to represent that emotional content – this is something Clint and I tried to do on ‘Mystic River’ and ‘Million Dollar Baby,’ and both of those turned out okay. We’re playing with color, desaturization, and some very, very, very deep, solid blacks, to let that look reflect what’s happening with the characters.” Just as Stern feels he is helping to tell the story in image and light, Hopper feels her role is to help tell the story through the costumes. “The actors have to feel their characters, and a lot of times, that starts with putting on their clothes,” she says. “John Bradley was a conservative guy, so I dressed him in Brooks Brothers in his civilian clothes. Rene is, in a way, the ‘movie star’ of the group, so he was always neat and tidy, and his clothes reflect that. With Ira’s problems, his clothes are aged and dirty, or not as well put-together. All of these elements need to work in harmony with the characters for credibility.” The film was shot on location in Los Angeles and surrounding areas of southern California; Iwo Jima, Japan; Arlington, Virginia; Chicago, Illinois; Houston, Texas; and Iceland. In fact, the majority of the Iwo Jima sequences in the film were shot on location in Iceland, which features black sand beaches that could double for those on Iwo. “Nothing’s been done to Iwo Jima at all,” says Eastwood. “There’s a small Japanese military detachment and some U.S. airmen that come in once in a while to run operations. They have one good airfield that they fixed up quite nice, but the second, they just left to deteriorate, and the rest of the island’s much the same. There are a lot of memorials. It’s thought of as a very sacred area. We were invited to film there and we did film there, but the actual re-enacting of the invasion means a tremendous bombardment, a tremendous amount of troops running up, so we didn’t want to do a lot of pyrotechnics there. “I know Iceland seems like an odd choice, but it isn’t,” Eastwood continues. “It’s a geothermal volcanic island, much like Iwo is. It’s got pure black sand, like Iwo has. They both have volcanic steam coming up out of the ground. They’re in different meridians, of course, but Iceland in August, while a little cooler, has conditions otherwise similar to Iwo in February.” “The topography of Iceland is like being on the moon,” says Ryan Phillippe. “It was hard to shoot there, because the location was so remote and we felt isolated from the rest of the world. As a result, we in the cast bonded in a way that I don’t think we would have if we’d shot in Hollywood.” To make the experience of war as realistic as he could, Eastwood often did not inform his actors of when or where, exactly, the special effects team had rigged explosions to go off. The actors were never in danger, but always surprised. “We were caught off-guard constantly,” says Phillippe. “When something explodes right next to you, your reaction is very real. “The whole experience was unique,” Phillippe continues. “I’d be on the beach, look to the left, and see 500 people firing guns. Our hearts were beating, our adrenaline was pumping, and emotion kicked in. You can’t help but be affected by that environment.” One of the most emotional days on the set was, not surprisingly, the day the production re-enacted the flag-raising. For everyone in the cast and crew, there was, of course, a distinct desire to get it right – that is, to present the event as it’s pictured in the famous photograph. “When we raised the flag, you could sense a palpable energy in the crew – something special was happening,” says Barry Pepper. “We all shook hands and congratulated each other when we were done. Representing these men and telling their story – as well as the story of what the Marines accomplished on Iwo Jima – was meaningful to all of us.” “This was one of the few shots that Clint decided to do more than once,” says Ben Walker. “We did four or five, just to make sure we got it right. The six of us rehearsed it the night before – we got the footage and slowed it down and practiced, to try to get it as close as we could.” “When we were done, even Clint said we’d done a great job, and it’s rare for him to express that kind of emotion,” Pepper laughs. Sgt. Maj. James Dever, who served as the military advisor for “Flags of Our Fathers,” was, of course, on hand for the shooting of the flag-raising scene. “It was outstanding, the way the actors represented the Marine Corps on that day,” he says. In his role, Dever researched the historical period with the wardrobe, props, and special effects departments in order to ensure that everything seen onscreen was historically accurate. Dever was also responsible for training 500 extras playing Marines in the scenes detailing the invasion of the island. Dever’s most exciting moment during filming was the shooting of the invasion sequence: “I was watching 500 guys, all of whom we’d trained in how to carry their equipment and how to fire their weapon, moving in the background with explosions going all around, making sure no one got hurt and everything operated like it was supposed to. It was awesome.” The film’s Marine coordinator, Jimmy O’Connell, obtained the use of 60-year-old LVTs (Landing Vehicle Tracked), the vehicles that can drive from the sea directly onto the beach using its tank-like tracks, and 60-year-old LCVPs (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel, also called “Higgins boats”), which would bring marines up to a beach and drop a forward ramp. ABOUT THE BATTLE OF IWO JIMA
“…Iwo lay on a direct line between the Marianas and Japan, and the Japanese on the island could give advance warning of the bombers’ approach. The enemy would then put up massive antiaircraft barrages and ‘stack’ fighter planes high in the sky, waiting to pounce on the B-29s. If the fighters could not shoot down a B-29, then they would try to ram it.” Robert Leckie, The Battle for Iwo Jima “Crippled American planes trying to get home were easy targets for enemy pilots lurking in the skies around Iwo, and bombers based there made almost nightly harassing raids on Saipan’s airfields.” Bill D. Ross, Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor The Battle of Iwo Jima was conceived by the Allied forces as a necessary step in the Pacific war towards the defeat of Japan. The Allies had been running daily bombing raids on Japan from the Marianas Islands; Iwo Jima, controlled by the Japanese, served as an early warning station, radioing reports back to mainland Japan. When the Allied bombers reached Japan, anti-aircraft defenses were waiting. In addition, Iwo Jima served as an air base – Japanese forces were taking down Allied bombers en route to targets on mainland Japan and returning from their raids. If the Allied bombing raids were to continue, the threat of Iwo Jima had to be neutralized. Although the Allies were primarily looking at other strategic targets – particularly Okinawa – it seemed that those invasions would be months away and Iwo Jima provided a more immediate target. Iwo Jima became the first battle fought on Japanese territory during WWII. The United States began an intense air and naval assault on the 22,000 troops that defended the island on February 16, 1945. Three days later, the Americans invaded. In the fight for the island, the first step was to capture the island’s high point: Mount Suribachi, a 546-foot mountain in the south of the island. As they landed on the invasion beach, the 30,000 troops took heavy fire as they surrounded the hill. (40,000 more Marines would follow in the coming days). The fight for the hill was tough, but by February 23, the Marines had taken Suribachi and planted the flag (twice). Over the next 31 days, the United States and Japan remained locked in battle for the island. Marines headed north to capture the airfields; Japanese troops fought to the death to maintain control. By March 26, the battle had become a costly one, especially for Japan. Out of roughly 22,000 soldiers, only 1,083 survived; 6,821 Americans also lost their lives, among them three of the flag-raisers (Sgt. Michael Strank, Harlon Block, and Franklin Sousley). 20,000 Americans were wounded in the battle. 27 Medals of Honor were awarded for conduct in the invasion of Iwo Jima – the largest number in history for any single battle and more than one-quarter of all those awarded during WWII. On The Set of "Flags Of Our Fathers" James Bradley, Clint Eastwood, James Parlier on the set of "Flags of Our Fathers"
|
|
Starring Sean Penn
Features
"Films Now Playing In Movie Theaters"
Movie Trailers of ALL "2008 Films" Coming To Movie Theaters
|
|||||
 |
|||||||
All content © 2004-2008, Wild About Movies. Content available for purchase. Contact us. About us. |
