United States Marine Corps War Memorial

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US Marine Corps War Memorial

The US Marine Corps War Memorial is a 1954 war memorial designed by Felix W. de Weldon . It is adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery in Rosslyn, Virginia . Only the Potomac River separates it from the capital Washington . The monument is for all members of the US Marine Corps dedicated to since its inception in 1775 fell .

origin

The bronze statue represents the raising of the American flag by PFC Ira Hayes , PFC Harold Schultz , Sgt Michael Strank , Cpl Harlon Block , PFC Franklin Sousley and PFC Rene Gagnon on the Suribachi at the south end of the island of Iwojima , during the Battle of the Island , on February 23, 1945. It was not until June 2016 that an error in the identification of the soldiers involved was recognized and corrected. In the photo, PhM2c John Bradley , who was not involved in hoisting the second flag, had been mistaken for Sousley. The Marine identified as Sousley was actually Harold Henry Schultz.

The scene was captured by war photographer Joe Rosenthal in the photo Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima , which was later awarded the Pulitzer Prize and is considered one of the most famous war photographs of all. Later it turned out that a first, smaller flag was hoisted before the photo was taken and the photo actually only shows the exchange of this flag.

Emergence

Felix W. de Weldon, a sculptor who served in the US Navy , later recreated the scene in the photo, first in a model and then in a life-size statue. The statue itself was created in a total of three years from 108 parts in the Bedi-Rassy Art Foundry in Brooklyn , New York . The total cost of 850,000 USD was covered by donations. Today the memorial is administered by the National Park Service .

The flag flies day and night.

Work on the statue began in 1951. Construction began in September 1954 and President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicated it on November 10, 1954, the 179th anniversary of the Marine Corps, to the aforementioned fallen. The soldiers shown rise 10 m, the flagpole even 20 m. There are two impressions in the granite platform:

  • " In honor and in memory of the men of the United States Marine Corps who have given their lives to their country since November 10, 1775. "
" In honor and memory of the men of the US Marine Corps who gave their lives for their country since November 10, 1775. "
  • " Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue. "
" Extraordinary courage was an ordinary virtue " (A tribute from Admiral Chester W. Nimitz to the fighting men on Iwojima.)

The platform also shows the locations and times of every major Marine Corps operation. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy decided that a US flag should fly on the memorial both day and night.

The original model of the statue is now in Harlingen , Texas at the Marine Military Academy , a private Marine Corps-inspired military academy.

The National Iwo Jima Memorial in Newington , Connecticut uses a similar design and is dedicated to the 6,821 men who died in the Battle of Iwojima.

In 1968 the American artist and sculptor Edward Kienholz again quoted the heroic group of soldiers in his environment The transportable war memorial . The work is in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.

Web links

Commons : Marine Corps War Memorial  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

literature

  • Jost Dülffer : Über-Helden - The image of Iwo Jima in the representation of victory. A study of the American culture of remembrance since 1945. In: Zeithistorische Forschungen. = Studies In Contemporary History. Vol. 3, H. 2, 2006, ISSN  1612-6033 , pp. 247-272, online .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.marines.mil: USMC STATEMENT ON IWO JIMA FLAG RAISERS . Retrieved July 6, 2016.

Coordinates: 38 ° 53 ′ 26 "  N , 77 ° 4 ′ 11"  W.