James Bradley Dies: ‘Flags Of Our Fathers’ Co-Author Was 72

James Bradley, whose nonfiction book Flags Of Our Fathers recounted his father’s purported role in the iconic WWII photograph of American soldiers raising the stars-and-stripes flag on Iwo Jima became a bestseller and was adapted into a hit 2006 film directed by Clint Eastwood, died June 5. He was 72.

His death was announced by his family, though a cause was not stated. A longtime resident of Antigo, Wisconsin, Bradley passed away, according to his obituary, surrounded by his four children.

Born February 18, 1954, in Antigo, Bradley was an avid reader and history buff. When his father, John “Doc” Bradley, who had served at Iwo Jima during WWII, died in 1994, the younger Bradley came across a letter his father had written to his own parents in 1945 three days after Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal’s image of six American servicemen hoisting an American flag on Mount Suribachi off Iwo Jima in Japan, an image that would become an iconic symbol of American determination and victory in war.

“I had a little thing to do with the raising of the American flag and it was the happiest moment of my life,” Doc Bradley had written in the letter to his parents, prompting James Bradley to set about telling the story of the famous flag-raising.

The resulting book, Flags of Our Fathers, written by Bradley with journalist Ron Powers, was published in 2000 and became a No. 1 bestseller, and the 2000 movie adaptation took their place among other “Greatest Generation” tributes of the era such as Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998); the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers (2001); and Tom Brookaw’s The Greatest Generation, the 1998 nonfiction book that gave the genre its name.

In Bradley’s telling (and in the film adaptation that followed) the six flag-raisers were identified as his father Navy Corpsman Doc Bradley, Sgt. Michael Strank, Cpl. Harlon Block, Pfc. Ira Hayes, Pfc. Franklin Sousley, and Pfc. Rene Gagnon. In the film, Doc Bradley was portrayed by actor Ryan Phillippe.

The information, however, was incorrect, or at least partially so. A Marine Corps investigation later found that those six service members had indeed raised a flag, but it was a smaller, first flag erected earlier that day. The larger flag was raised subsequently – and famously photographed by Rosenthal – by Strank, Block, Hayes, Sousley, Pfc. Harold Schultz (who had replaced Bradley) and Pfc. Harold “Pie” Keller (who had replaced Gagnon).

Bradley the author eventually conceded that his research had been faulty and that the flag-raising in which his father had been involved was photographed by a Marine photographer earlier on the morning of February 23, 1945, and that Doc Bradley was not depicted in the famous Rosenthal photo.

The new revelations did little to diminish Flags Of Our Fathers, though, and in a roundabout way underscored one of the novel’s main themes: The manipulation of patriotic symbols for propaganda purposes and the intense survivor’s guilt felt by the flag-raisers over the glorification of their experience.

After Flags Of Our Fathers, Bradley continued writing historical nonfiction including Flyboys: A True Story of Courage (2003), The Imperial Cruise: The Secret History of Empire and War (2009), and The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia (2015).

Bradley is survived by children Michelle Bradley, Alison Cinnamond, Ava Bradley and Jack Bradley, as well as other extended family.