ABSTRACT
This frequently reprinted photograph has become one of the emblematic images of World War II, appearing in books and films about the war six decades later. But unlike the 1938 Japanese flag-raising in the Chinese capital of Nanjing (figure 33 in Chapter 3) and the 1945 American flag-raising on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima (a staged photograph, we now know) or a major victory, like the British surrender of Singapore in 1942 (figure 37 in Chapter 7) or MacArthur wading ashore in his promised return to the Philippines in 1944, it is not celebratory. There are many "real-time" spontaneous World War II photographs that capture a turning point in the war, a decisive moment when the course of world history changed-Stalin's laughing face at Yalta, the mushroom cloud above Hiroshima. But this is not one of those photographs. The caption (and, indeed, the internal evidence of the photograph) tells us that it was taken eight days after the Great Tokyo Air Raid, and five months before the Japanese surrender.
