SAN FRANCISCO, CA (August 21, 2006) - NPPA Life member and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Joseph J. Rosenthal, 94, died Sunday in Novato, CA, at his home in the Atria Tamalpais Creek assisted living center, his family reports. A Catholic funeral mass has been scheduled for Saturday, September 16, 2006 at 1 p.m. at St. Emydius Catholic Church in San Francisco.
Rosenthal was a 33-year-old Associated Press photographer on February 23, 1945, when he photographed U.S. Marines raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, a photograph that became an icon of hope amidst struggle and victory in the long-suffering World War II. He took the picture on the fifth day of battle on the island during a fight that would go on for a total of 36 days, leaving more than 6,000 Americans dead and nearly 20,000 wounded.
Rosenthal's picture won the Pulitzer Prize for photography in 1945. "Of all the images that have captured Pulitzer Prizes, none is more memorable than Joe Rosenthal's raising of the flag on Iwo Jima," Sig Gissler said today. Since 2002, Gissler has been administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes for Columbia University. "Indeed, an enlarged copy hangs on the wall in front of my desk. It is my daily reminder of his picture for the ages."
Rosenthal’s daughter, Anne Rosenthal of San Rafael, CA, says there will be a Catholic memorial mass on Saturday, September 16, 2006 at 1 p.m. at St. Emydius Catholic Church, 286 Ashton Ave., in San Francisco, CA. Rosenthal has been cremated and his ashes will be spread at a later date in the Bay Area. On the day before the mass, a U.S. Marine Corps Tribute Service for Rosenthal is scheduled at the Marines' Memorial Club in San Francisco.
The World War II commander of the Pacific fleet, Admiral Chester Nimitz, said of the battle of Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest in Marine Corps history, "Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue." This year Hal Buell, the retired former director of Associated Press photography, wrote a new book about Rosenthal’s famous photograph, titled “Uncommon Valor, Common Virtue.”
“Joe Rosenthal, after 94 years, has left us but his spirit and his legacy, but he will be with us forever – not only in the American icon he created on a distant battlefield, but in the memory of his behavior and demeanor through all those years,” Buell told News Photographer magazine today. “His picture is and will be always a lasting symbol of the American experience and of America's sense of mission at mid-20th century. Joe could easily have been a conceited and difficult man, but he was until the end modest, unassuming, and an elder of our profession, always willing to share his insights with the juniors. His integrity and his professionalism will endure along with his picture.”
Santiago Lyon is now the director of photography for the Associated Press. "I am saddened by the death of Joe Rosenthal, a brave and dedicated AP photographer who made perhaps the most iconic photograph to come out of World War II, that of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima. That image, reproduced countless times around the world, is Joe's legacy to the world and will live on eternally, despite his passing," Lyon said today. "I salute Joe Rosenthal, his talent, his courage, and commitment. He was part of the AP family and will be missed."
Rosenthal joined NPPA when it was founded, on June 6, 1946. He retired from the San Francisco Chronicle in 1981 after a 35-year career at the newspaper. Poor eyesight kept him from being able to serve in the military as a soldier, so he used his photographic skills to follow U.S. troops into battle. First he was a combat photographer with the merchant marines, then as an AP correspondent, covering the South Pacific, London during the blitz, and General Douglas MacArthur's Army in battle in New Guinea. AP says Rosenthal was in the first wave invasions on Guam, Peleliu, Anguar, and Iwo Jima, and he was known for being in the midst of battle right alongside fighting soldiers.
“Joe Rosenthal, a self-effacing, utterly honest man wasn’t in the business of creating symbols or art. He was a hard working photojournalist for the AP wire service sent to cover American troops fighting the Japanese in the Pacific,” said Marianne Fulton, author of the book, “Eyes Of Time: Photojournalism In America.” “He was dodging bullets and doing his job, and yet ‘Old Glory goes up on Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima’ was the basis for a war bond drive, a postage stamp, and the large Marine Corps Memorial statue in Arlington. The public’s reverence for the photograph he made on Iwo Jima transformed the image into an icon. Photographs of such power are rare gifts—we owe Joe Rosenthal a debt of thanks.”
The war bond drive in 1945 using Rosenthal's picture raised $26.3 billion. The Marine Corps Memorial statue is adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, on the Lincoln Memorial end of the great Mall. The massive statue mimics Rosenthal's photograph; it's made of bronze and weighs more than 100 tons. Every Fourth of July, scores of photographers use the popular statue as a foreground element in time exposures as fireworks explode in the sky overhead and in the background in Washington, DC.
During an interview for "War Stories," Rosenthal told the Newseum about his feelings on the Iwo Jima picture. "I feel a gratification that the use of the picture, in general, has been very good use," Rosenthal said. "It happened to be me. It might have been any photographer. Or perhaps it might never have been taken. But it was me. And so in a sense I stand for whoever would have taken a picture that gets such good response."
During the Depression, Rosenthal moved from his hometown of Washington, DC, to live with a brother in San Francisco. In 1930 he went to work for the Newspaper Enterprise Association and in 1932 he became a reporter and photographer for the San Francisco News. He worked for Acme Newspictures and then for The New York Times-Wide World Photos. AP bought Wide World Photos and it was AP that sent Rosenthal to cover war beginning in 1944.
After World War II he worked for AP until he joined the Chronicle staff in 1946, the year NPPA was founded. He once told the Chronicle in an interview, "My intention was to stay here for a few years and then go on to some other place. I stayed for 35 years.”
Photojournalist and war correspondent Steve Stibbens of Dallas, TX, wrote a review of “Uncommon Valor, Common Virtue” for the June 2006 issue of News Photographer magazine. “Four photographers made photographs of Marines raising a flag February 23, 1945, on a smelly Japanese atoll called Iwo Jima,” Stibbens wrote. “The first was shot by Marine Sgt. Louis R. Lowery of Leatherneck magazine. The other, made about an hour later at approximately the same spot atop a 556-foot volcano called Mt. Suribachi, was made by a scrappy little guy wearing coke-bottle spectacles, a photographer for the Associated Press named Joe Rosenthal.”
“Another Marine, PFC Bob Campbell, photographed both flags at once: the first coming down and the second one going up. Sgt. Bill Genaust captured the second flag going up on Mt. Suribachi with his motion picture camera. Genaust was killed nine days later and remains entombed on Iwo Jima to this day in a cave on Hill 362-A.”
People's first reaction to Rosenthal’s famous photograph makes is easy to see how it quickly became such a popular icon. Stibbens told how Jack Bodkin, an Associated Press photo editor in civilian life and a Naval officer during the war, was one of the professional editors assigned to Guam where all the “pool” film from Iwo Jima had been flown. He was the first to see Rosenthal’s remarkable picture, still wet as it was pulled out of the chemicals after processing. “Here’s one for all time,” he exclaimed. A print was made immediately and radioed by an AP transmitter to San Francisco over Navy radiophoto circuits.
George Sweers, an AP wirephoto operator in Kansas City, recalled seeing the picture come across as it was transmitted from New York. “Wow! What a picture!” Sweers said. “It looks like a statue.”
Stibbens said about "Uncommon Valor, Common Virtue," "This book is about Joe’s photograph. What’s more, for the first time, it’s a book about Joe, the kid from Washington, DC, who went on to make the most famous photograph of all time. Who better to write this book than Hal Buell, who retired as top photo executive of the Associated Press? He literally lived with the famous AP photo and its priceless negative for nearly 50 years. Buell’s book should go down as the authority on what really happened on Iwo Jima, 61 years ago. He details the 10 days that Rosenthal spent on the island and presents many more photos made by Rosenthal on Iwo Jima. The book includes more than 120 combat photos along with a DVD by Lou Reda Productions.”
Rosenthal is survived by his daughter, Anne, and a son, Joseph J. Rosenthal Jr. of Washington state, and their families, as well as his ex-wife, Lee Rosenthal.
