Felix de Weldon's 1954 bronze depicts five Marines and a Navy Corpsman raising the flag on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi as Allied forces struggled to capture the Japanese-held island.

WSJ: Original Iwo Jima monument coming to NYC auction

That sculpture, designed by Felix de Weldon, was patterned after a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press image of the Feb. 23, 1945, flag-raising by Marines and a Navy Corpsman on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi.

WSJ: Original Iwo Jima monument unsold at NYC auction

It drew on the past - the marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima - and so became a reaffirmation of who Americans believed they were.

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