AP photographer Joe Rosenthal's Pulitzer Prize-winning picture
of five Marines and a Navy medical corpsman raising the U.S. flag
captured the hearts of Americans still embroiled in World War II.
It is perhaps the most reproduced photograph in history. Public
demand at the end of the war led to the commissioning of Felix
DeWeldon to design and sculpt a statue depicting the flag-raising.
Mr. DeWeldon, in fact, was so struck by the photograph he had
already made a scale model while serving in the Navy during the
war. The memorial is dedicated to all personnel of the United
States Marine Corps who have died in the defense of their country
since 1775.
For years, drivers heading from Tampa to Orlando saw a roadside
replica of the Iwo Jima memorial along Interstate 4. Standing 9
feet high and 11 feet wide, the bronze molding in bas-relief of The
Flag Raising on Iwo Jima was crafted by the same sculptor who made
the famous 48-foot version for the Marine Corps War Memorial in
Arlington, Va.
The Interstate 4 sculpture was the pet project of Ellwood
Robinson "Bob" Pipping Jr., who commissioned Felix de Weldon in the
'80s to create a smaller version of the Arlington Memorial that he
would place on one of his citrus groves beside I-4. With the
widening of I-4 the memorial had to be removed or it was going to
be destroyed by FDOT.
The monument is now located just inside the confines of Fantasy
of Flight off Exit 44. The cache is located across the street from
the memorial, not on private property.
This cache was placed by a member of the
Florida Geocaching
Association