FAQ for
Flags of Our Fathers (2006) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

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Yes. It is based on the book Flags of Our Fathers (2000) by American authors James Bradley and Ron Powers. It tells the story of the raising of the American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima during WW2.

Iwo Jima (now Iwo To) is a volcanic Island in the northwest Pacific Ocean south of Japan and east of Taiwan.

Flags of Our Fathers portrays the battle of Iwo Jima from the American viewpoint and is a companion piece to Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), which depicts the same battle from the Japanese perspective. Both films are directed by Clint Eastwood.

They are shown. Eastwood shows AA Marines on board ship during the convoy sequence. Additionally, a wounded African American marine is seen on a stretcher during the beach landing sequence. This small role is historically accurate. The Marine Corps was segregated during WW II. Of the 60,000 Marines on Iwo Jima, no more than 600 were AA. Black Marines on Iwo Jima were mainly support troops, and primarily used to haul ammunition and other supplies from the beach to the front. Of the 6,000 marines killed on Iwo Jima, 2 were African American.

Several reasons:

1) They were in a convoy going 10-12 knots. It would be absurd for a convoy, with anywhere from 10-50 ships, surrounded by 3-8 destroyers to stop in mid-ocean and mill around trying to find one man. Not only was a convoy required to stay on schedule; but stopping would put the whole convoy at risk for air and submarine attack.

2) Accordingly, standard naval procedure was for a transport that man lost a man overboard to hoist a flag (or send message via other means) indicating man overboard. The last ships in the convoy and the trailing destroyers would then try to locate him and pick him up. In fact, usually one merchant ship or destroyer at the tail end of the convoy was given the task of trying to pick up any man overhead.

3) In real life, both Navy and Marine NCOs and Officers would have ordered the men not to hang off the rigging and put any violators on report.

4) The chances of surviving after falling off a ship in convoy were small despite the best of efforts. The ocean is big and one man insignificant. Pilots who ditched next to destroyers or carriers were often never found, despite men seeing them get out of their planes OK.