COBI's Iwo Jima 1945 set is built from 87 blocks and contains six figures of US Marines, arranged to recreate the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi on 23 February 1945. All markings are printed.
It was the second flag
The photograph everyone knows is not the moment the flag went up. It is the moment a different flag went up, several hours later.
A patrol reached the summit that morning and raised a small flag, and the reaction below was enormous β ships sounded their horns, men cheered across the island. Then a decision was made that the flag was too small to be seen properly from the beaches, and a larger one was sent up.
Joe Rosenthal photographed the second raising. He did not pose it and did not know what he had until the film was developed in Guam. The picture won the Pulitzer Prize, was reproduced on a war bond poster that raised an enormous sum, and became the Marine Corps Memorial in Arlington.
What happened afterwards
The flag went up on the fifth day. The battle ran for another month.
Japanese defenders fought from a network of tunnels dug into the volcanic rock, and the fighting continued until late March. Three of the six men in the photograph were killed in that remaining month. The identification of the men took decades to settle; the Marine Corps corrected the official list twice, most recently in 2019.
The image is a symbol of victory. It was taken with four fifths of the battle still to come.
In the COBI range
One of the larger figure sets in the Historical Collection β six figures rather than the usual three, forming a single scene rather than separate soldiers.
Specifications
Pieces: 87 Β· Figures: 6
Model dimensions: 9.5 Γ 6.5 Γ 13 cm (3.7 Γ 2.6 Γ 5.1 in)
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