Flags of Our Fathers
   James Bradley with Ron Powers
  2000 Bantam Books, NY USA
  ISBN: 0553111337


After the death of his father, the last surviving GI in The Photograph of raising the Stars & Stripes atop Mount Suribachi on the little island of Iwo Jima in 1945, James Bradley found some cardboard boxes in which was stored his father's wartime memorabilia. This is one son's gift to honor his father & those other five patriots & to us, who have come after, of a time & a people caught up in lethal, brutal combat in faraway places. This is the story of American sons, their life & times, their loves & courage, their deaths & fame.

We, who are so inured by shots of our idols everywhere doing everything, cannot imagine the impact The Photograph had on our great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, uncles & aunts. Back then that black & white photo with those faceless, nameless soldiers helping each other raise Old Glory resonated with the millions of civilians who were namelessly, facelessly struggling, scrimping & praying for their men to come home, for victory & for the war to stop.

I was gripped by this book from the beginning. James Bradley has written a hymn, a vibrant oratorio to the lives of the American Marines & to six GIs in particular. His opening chapter when he takes us back to Iwo Jima with his mother & siblings reminds me of how I feel when I see the names of my uncles on a cenotaph in London or of friends on the Viet Nam War Memorial. He has also written a ripping good war story building the anticipation, letting loose with the fire & devastation of D-Day on Iwo Jima.

With memories of childhood friends, sweethearts, family & friends, James Bradley has sewn a patchwork of affection, remembrance & gratitude. I had tears in my eyes by the end of the first chapter. It only got better. With the aid of Ron Powers, this author has written biographies of not only the six flag raisers who came from every part of America from sons of immigrants to generations established in one place, he has also included snippets of the memoirs of the Japanese Commander General Kuribayashi; given a sound history of the American Marines; an inch by inch recounting of the assault on that Pacific atoll & subsequent military efforts.

Flags of Our Fathers also gives us a long hard look at how the three surviving heroes were shipped from city to city during the 7th & final Bond Tour to raise money for the invasion of Japan & to rub shoulders with John Wayne during the making of the movie The Sands of Iwo Jima. Those three GIs were touted about before unprecedented crowds by a government determined to make enough money to win the war. The cost to the heroes on this grand tour of adulation was almost as hard as surviving the bloody & brutal conflict on those black lava beaches an ocean away.

I found it ironic, almost Quakerish, that the son of a flag raiser would find his way to Japan & relish the Japanese culture. At no time did Jack “Doc” Bradley bad mouth the sons of his enemy. I also found James Bradley's affection for the Japanese people & culture gave him insights into the history of a military controlled country which trained generations of their men to perform atrocious acts in the name of their emperor. I sense James Bradley's understanding of the Japanese gave us a much broader perspective of the fierce fighting that took place & why the sons of the Rising Sun fought to the bitter end.

Flags of Our Fathers is a keeper not only in honor of those who gave their lives that we would know freedom, it is a keeper for the glimpse we are given of an America since lost in the mists of time! Very well done!
(08/20/00)

Rebecca