Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima 2016 Tournament Objective Each year we produce a special objective marker, which is given away to participants in official tournaments. This year’s model is based on Joe Rosenthal's photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. It shows five United States Marines - Ira Hayes, Harlon Block, Franklin Sousley, Michael Strank and Rene Gagnon – and Navy hospital corpsman John Bradley raising a US flag at the summit of Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945, in the early stages of the Battle of Iwo Jima. Designed and painted by James Brown

It was actually the second flag raised on Mount Suribach on February 23. First Lieutenant Harold Schrier raised a smaller flag a few hours earlier, after leading a 40-man combat patrol up the mountain. But this first flag was too small to be seen clearly from the landing beaches. Colonel Chandler Johnson, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, ordered PFC Rene Gagnon to take a larger flag up Mount Suribachi to replace it. Block, Sousley and Hayes had spent the morning laying a telephone wire to the top of Mount Suribachi. The marines attached the flag to an old steel Japanese water pipe, and Rosenthal reached the summit just in time to snap the scene of it being raised.

After the first photo, Rosenthal posed a group of Marines under the flag for another photograph, which is now known as the 'Gung Ho' shot. A few days later, before Rosenthal had seen the developed film, a Time-Life correspondent asked him whether he had staged the photograph. Thinking he meant the 'Gung Ho' image, he replied, 'Sure.' For years, this misunderstanding led to the misconception that the flag-raising photograph had been staged.

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is one of the most famous and recognisable images of the Second World War. Rosenthal won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography. It inspired another similarly iconic photograph, Raising a flag over the Reichstag, which was our 2015 tournament objective. The flag-raising scene provided the design for the United States Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.

Instead of metal, the flag-raising party is made from polyester resin. Compared to the heavier polyurethane resin of the base piece (the same as used for most of our tank and vehicle models), the lighter resin is softer and more flexible, making it more resilient. This allowed us to cast the tightly packed group, along with the flag, as a single piece. Casting metal pieces this large can cause loss of detail because of the heat involved. Plus, the weight of the sculpted flag, in metal, would have made the flag 'pole' (actually a length of steel water pipe) very bendy and fragile, unless we greatly exaggerated its thickness. So polyester resin is the best material for this part. The flag pole might bend in the packaging, in which case you can straighten it quite easily. Dip the part in hot (near boiling) water for 5-10 seconds. The heat will soften the resin so you can straighten it out. While holding it straight, ether allow it to cool naturally, or dip it in cold water to harden it instantly.

These tournament objectives are always a real lot of fun to work on, and I hope this year's model will be a popular one with everyone who gets one.  ~ James.