Dickey Chapelle taking a selfie.
"I was certain of one conclusion," she wrote: "there was in all the world at this moment only one story: the men fighting and dying on Iwo Jima."
Dickey wanted to get closer to that story. She and the nurses traveled from Hawaii to Guam, where the teletype printer in the correspondent's room was directly linked to a ship just off Iwo Jima. Dickey watched as one communication clicked in: INCOMPLETE CASUALTY REPORTS INDICATE THAT FOR ONE OUT OF TEN AMERICANS WHO CHARGED ASHORE HERE THERE WAS NO SUNRISE. THEY DID NOT SURVIVE.
"Poetic, isn't he, this morning?" muttered one correspondent. Those numbers, he said, would certainly be censored; most Americans would never hear about this enormous loss of life.
Another report clicked in: AN UNCONFIRMED RUMOR IS SWEEPING THE SHIP THAT THE FLAG HAS BEEN SIGHTED ON THE TOP OF THE HIGHEST POINT OF THE SAVAGELY CONTESTED SOIL...
A discouraged correspondent in the room said it must be a bad joke.
The teletype machine began again: IT HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY CONFIRMED THAT THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES NOW FLIES FROM MOUNT SURIBACHI HIGHEST POINT OF THIS VOLCANIC ISLAND.
The depressed atmosphere in the press room was instantly transformed...It was the first time during this war that the United States had raised an American flag on Japanese soil. "Now that I was sure it was all right for a correspondent to show emotion," Dickey wrote, "I wiped my eyes with my knuckles."
From "Dickey Chapelle: As Far Forward as You'll Let Me" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater.
Photo of the first flag raising.
More info here.
