Pacific414 Pop Talk Watch Party with Commentary Only: Flags of our Fathers & Letters from Iwo Jima

Welcome one and all to a Veteran's Day special watch party of the Clint Eastwood directed companion films, Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.

During today's show, we invite you to join us over on Kosmi by clicking on the pinned link provided on the top of the chat to sit back, relax and join the conversation as we watch and discuss both of these films.

Flags of Our Fathers and Letter from Iwo Jima tell both the American and Japanese side of the famous battle that waged on the volcanic island from February 19, 195 to March 16, 1945.

The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. The American invasion, designated Operation Detachment, had the goal of capturing the island with its two airfields: South Field and Central Field.

The Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and 18 km (11 mi) of tunnels. American ground forces were supported by extensive naval artillery, and enjoyed complete air supremacy provided by USN and Marine Corps aviators throughout. The five-week battle saw some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the Pacific War.

Unique among Pacific War battles involving amphibious island landings, total American casualties exceeded those of the Japanese, with a ratio of three American casualties for every two Japanese Of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner, some only captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled. It has been estimated that as many as 3,000 continued to resist within various cave systems on the island after most major fighting ended, until they eventually succumbed to their injuries or surrendered weeks later.

The invasion of Iwo Jima was controversial, with retired Chief of Naval Operations William V. Pratt stating that the island was useless to the Army as a staging base and useless to the Navy as a fleet base. The Japanese continued to maintain early-warning radar capabilities on the island of Rota, which was never invaded by American forces. Experiences with previous Pacific island battles suggested that the island would be well-defended and that seizing it would result in significant casualties. Lessons learned on Iwo Jima served as guidelines for American forces in the Battle of Okinawa two months later and the planned invasion of the Japanese homeland.

Joe Rosenthal's Associated Press photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag at the summit of the 169 m (554 ft) Mount Suribachi by six Marines became a famous image of the battle and the American war in the Pacific.

Flags of Our Fathers is a 2006 American war drama film directed, co-produced, and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis. It is based on the 2000 book of the same name written by James Bradley and Ron Powers about the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima, the five Marines and one Navy corpsman who were involved in raising the flag on Iwo Jima, and the after effects of that event on their lives. Taken from the American viewpoint of the Battle of Iwo Jima.

The film was released on October 20, 2006. Although it was a box office bomb, only grossing $65.9 million against a $90 million budget, the film received favorable reviews from critics.

Letters from Iwo Jima (硫黄島からの手紙, Iōjima Kara no Tegami) is a 2006 Japanese-language American war film directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood, starring Ken Watanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya. The film portrays the Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers and is a companion piece to Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, which depicts the same battle from the American viewpoint; the two films were shot back to back. Letters from Iwo Jima is almost entirely in Japanese with a few English sequences, despite being co-produced by American companies DreamWorks Pictures, Malpaso Productions and Amblin Entertainment.

The film was released in Japan on December 9, 2006, and received a limited release in the United States on December 20, 2006. Upon release, the film received critical acclaim and although it only grossed slightly better at the box office than its companion, it was much more successful compared to its budget.

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