James Bradley, "who turned his curiosity about his father's time in the Navy during the Battle of Iwo Jima--and the long-held but ultimately mistaken belief that he was in the iconic photograph of six servicemen raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi--into the bestselling book Flags of Our Fathers (2000)," died June 5, the New York Times reported. He was 72.
Bradley co-wrote Flags of Our Fathers with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Powers. In 2006, the book was adapted into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Ryan Phillippe as Bradley's father.
The book "tells the stories of the six flag-raisers--John (Doc) Bradley, and five Marines--through the brutal, five-week-long battle against Japanese forces on Iwo Jima, a tiny volcanic island," which claimed the lives of some 6,800 American servicemen, including three of the flag raisers, the Times wrote. Bradley follows the survivors--his father, Rene Gagnon, and Ira Hayes--on their national war bonds tour after their return to the U.S., as well as their sometimes difficult postwar lives.
But in 2014 an article in the Omaha World Herald shared doubts raised by amateur historians that Doc Bradley was in the iconic photo of the Iwo Jima flag raising. At first, his son was dubious.
"Listen, I wrote a book based on facts, told to me by guys who had actually been there," he told the newspaper. "That's my research. That's what I trust. At the end of the day, the truth is the truth. Everything is possible. But really?" He eventually came to realize, however, that his father had been part of another flag raising with a smaller flag earlier in the day that was also photographed.
Alison Cinnamond, James Bradley's daughter, told the Times that her father didn't feel that the book was diminished by the finding, but he wanted the Marine Corps to be clear about who was actually in the photo.
Without experience as a writer or researcher, Bradley began writing Flags on his own. His book proposal was rejected by 27 publishers before an agent brought Powers on as a collaborator. Bantam Books then acquired the work.
Bradley continued to write about Asia in the nonfiction books Flyboys: A True Story of Courage (2003), The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War (2009), and The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia (2015). He also wrote a novel, Precious Freedom (2025).