Flags of Our Fathers
by James Bradley, Ron Powers
List Price:
Our Price: $0.87
You Save: $7.12 (89%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: James Bradley, Ron PowersEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-30
ISBN: 0553589083
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: Bantam
Book Reviews of Flags of Our Fathers
Book Review: Wonderful story of humility
Summary: 5 Stars
I was very surprised after reading this book to learn that the flagraising on Mt. Suribachi in Iwo Jima was nothing more than a simple replacement flag implant. These six men were brought together from all parts of the country, assigned to Iwo Jima along with thousands of other young American men and women, and by sheer circumstance, helped one another replace a crippled original flag on top of the mountain. A photographer happened to snap a shot of the flagraising, and instantly became a national symbol of courage and eventually the monument of The Marine Corps Memorial. The book is filled with clear images of life for a World War II soldier (Pacific Theater), strength, love, friendship, humility, fear, courage, and extreme struggle. I recommend this book to every American citizen.
Summary of Flags of Our Fathers
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.
The Battle of Iwo Jima, fought in the winter of 1945 on a rocky island south of Japan, brought a ferocious slice of hell to earth: in a month's time, more than 22,000 Japanese soldiers would die defending a patch of ground a third the size of Manhattan, while nearly 26,000 Americans fell taking it from them. The battle was a turning point in the war in the Pacific, and it produced one of World War II's enduring images: a photograph of six soldiers raising an American flag on the flank of Mount Suribachi, the island's commanding high point.
One of those young Americans was John Bradley, a Navy corpsman who a few days before had braved enemy mortar and machine-gun fire to administer first aid to a wounded Marine and then drag him to safety. For this act of heroism Bradley would receive the Navy Cross, an award second only to the Medal of Honor.
Bradley, who died in 1994, never mentioned his feat to his family. Only after his death did Bradley's son James begin to piece together the facts of his father's heroism, which was but one of countless acts of sacrifice made by the young men who fought at Iwo Jima. Flags of Our Fathers recounts the sometimes tragic life stories of the six men who raised the flag that February day--one an Arizona Indian who would die following an alcohol-soaked brawl, another a Kentucky hillbilly, still another a Pennsylvania steel-mill worker--and who became reluctant heroes in the bargain. A strongly felt and well-written entry in a spate of recent books on World War II, Flags gives a you-are-there depiction of that conflict's horrible arenas--and a moving homage to the men whom fate brought there. --Gregory McNamee
Military & Spies Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in US Navy Junior Enlisted Collection 2006
Time Management from the Inside Out, second edition: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule--and Your Lifeby Julie Morgenstern
Holt Paperbacks; Published: 2004-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
Starship Troopersby Robert A. Heinlein
Ace; Published: 1987-05-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.94
Price in other shops:
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleby Stephen R. Covey
Free Press; Published: 2004-11-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.57
Price in other shops:
A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navyby Thomas J. Cutler
US Naval Institute Press; Published: 2004-11-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.10
Price in other shops:
A Passage to Indiaby E.M. Forster
Harvest Books; Published: 1965-03-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Timesby Donald T. Phillips
Business Plus; Published: 1993-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.00
Price in other shops:
Life in Mr. Lincoln's Navyby Dennis J. Ringle
US Naval Institute Press; Published: 1998-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.37
Price in other shops:
The Kite Runnerby Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead Trade; Published: 2004-04-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops:
Flags of Our Fathersby James Bradley, Ron Powers
Bantam; Published: 2006-05-30; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.99
Price in other shops:
Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1)by Orson Scott Card
Tor Science Fiction; Published: 1994-07-15; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.75
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War IIby Stephen E. Ambrose
Simon & Schuster; Published: 1995-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops:
Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima (Youth Edition)by James Bradley, Ron Powers
Delacorte Books for Young Readers; Published: 2001-05-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $27.00
So Sad to Fall in Battle: An Account of War Based on General Tadamichi Kuribayashi's Letters from Iwo Jimaby Kumiko Kakehashi
Presidio Press; Published: 2007-09-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.43
Price in other shops:
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hourby James D. Hornfischer
Bantam; Published: 2005-03-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.88
Price in other shops:
Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Missionby Hampton Sides
Doubleday; Published: 2001-05-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.35
Price in other shops:
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Missionby Hampton Sides
Anchor; Published: 2002-05-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
Band of Brothers : E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nestby Stephen E. Ambrose
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2001-09-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.98
Price in other shops:
Flyboys: A True Story of Courageby James Bradley
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2006-02-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.49
Price in other shops:
Flyboys: A True Story of Courageby James Bradley
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2003-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.20
Price in other shops:
Flyboys: A True Story of Courageby James Bradley
Back Bay Books; Published: 2004-09-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.60
Price in other shops: