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The flag raising photo caused an immediate
sensation. Just two days after it was first seen in the US, Senators rose
on the floor of the US Senate calling for a national monument modeled on
the picture. The California State Legislature petitioned the Federal Government
to build a grand monument. Thousands of ordinary American's wrote the President
appealing for a monument to immortalize the picture they loved.
Felix DeWeldon, an ambitious sculptor, had a clay replica of the picture
sculpted within 72 hours of seeing the picture.
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President Truman with sculptor DeWeldon and
photographer Rosenthal. Oval Office April, 1945
Hundreds of artisans would work 8 years to create the Iwo Jima Monument. |
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Sculptor DeWeldon with Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes,
John Bradley.
The survivors modeled for DeWeldon. |
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Here sculptor DeWeldon works on the image
of John Bradley.
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Sculptor DeWeldon with Gagnon.
The three who died on Iwo Jima, Harlon Block, Mike Strank and Franklin
Sously, had their bodies recreated using pictures and measurements. |
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Here we see a three-truck convoy crossing
the George Washington Bridge with the gigantic figures. Skilled artisans
at the Bedi-Rassy Art Foundry, Brooklyn, NY took three years to cast them.
They're on their way down Interstate 95 headed to Arlington, Va. 1954 |
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Erection of the Statue began September, 1954.
DeWeldon first built the figures' bone structures with a steel framework.
He then put muscles and skin over this framework. The strain of the men's
muscles show dramatically through the clothes that were added later. |
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Rene Gagnon, Polly Gagnon, John Bradley, Elizabeth
Bradley, Ira Hayes. Union Station Washington, D.C. Nov. 1954. (In town
for the Dedication Ceremony.)
Gagnon was an airlines clerk, Bradley was an entrepreneur and Hayes
lived in a $50 hut on the Gila Indian Reservation. |
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The Memorial was dedicated by President Dwight
D. Eisenhower on November 10. 1954.
Here Ike listens to his Vice President Richard Nixon. |
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The last photograph of the three survivors
together, Bradley, Hayes and Gagnon.
Within 10 weeks Ira Hayes would be found frozen, face down in an irrigation
ditch. He died of exposure and alcohol at the age of 33, almost 10 years
to the day he helped raise the flag on Iwo Jima. |
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Vice President Nixon's "Photo Op" with Flag
Raisers Bradley, Gagnon and Hayes.
Hayes had less than 3 months to live. |
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Each figure is 32 feet high. The flagpole
is 60 feet in length. It's the world's tallest bronze statue. It's stands
78 feet high. A cloth flag flies from the pole.
The cost of the statue was $850,000 (1954 Dollars.) No public funds
were used. Private donations picked up the tab. |
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The inscription reads:
"Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue."
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