It was the very image of a future American victory.

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BARBARA KLEIN: In Washington, DC, Felix de Weldon saw the photograph in the newspapers. Born in Austria, he came to the United States and was an artist in the Navy.

Many years later he would say, “I had been an artist all my life. When I first saw it I recognized the power of this photograph. I could not take my eyes from it. I looked at the photograph for some hours and then began working.”

Seventy-two hours later, Felix de Weldon had made a small statue of Joe Rosenthal’s picture. Within days, members of Congress had seen the small statue. Many began to call for a huge statue. President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the Marine Corps to send home the men who had raised the flag.

STEVE EMBER: By then, however, it was too late. Mike Strank, Harlon Block and Franklin Sousley were dead. They were among the more than six-thousand Marines killed on Iwo Jima.

Navy Corpsman John Bradley had been severely wounded. But he, Rene Gagnon and Ira Hayes returned to the United States.

People said they were heroes. The three men said they had done nothing but help put up a flag. But Joe Rosenthal’s photograph was so powerful, nothing would change people's minds.

Felix de Weldon soon made a life-size copy of the statue. He carefully copied the faces of the three survivors. He used all the photographs he could find for the three who had been killed.