JOE ROSENTHAL, the photographer who took the iconic image of Second World War American troops raising their flag over the battle-scarred island of Iwo Jima, has died at the age of 94.

Rosenthal’s magnum opus, which won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1945, was printed in publications around the world and went on to appear on posters and stamps and in a John Wayne movie. It also served as a model for the Marine Corps memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. The Pulitzer committee described the photograph as a “frozen flash of history”.

Until his death, Rosenthal was dogged by rumours that the image had been faked. He always denied that he had had a hand in any staging but the flag that he photographed the six soldiers straining to hoist was the second to be raised in victory over the small, strategic Pacific island. Four days before it was taken, Marines had landed on the island and raised their standard on Mount Suribachi — the first American flag to fly over Japanese territory in three years of fierce battles in the Pacific. The flag that they raised, however, was so small that their commander sent them back to the beach to get a bigger replacement, to be raised in a staged ceremony for the visiting Secretary of the Navy. The flag that they chose had been rescued from a sinking ship at Pearl Harbor.

Rosenthal, who covered the war for the Associated Press, almost abandoned his climb to the summit when he heard that the flag had already been raised. But when he arrived there he found Marines hoisting the second one. He did not see the picture that he had filed until days later, after it had appeared around the world.

He is reported to have made less than $10,000 (£5,300) from what has become probably the most famous photograph of the entire war. “And I was gratified to get that,” he said a decade ago. “Every once in a while someone teases me that I could have been rich. But I’m alive. A lot of the men who were there are not.”

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