Legendary actor and director Clint Eastwood blasted the comments made by director Spike Lee that his films "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" failed to recognize the role of African-American soldiers.

Eastwood said it was nonsense to suggest he had "erased the role of black GIs from history" during an interview with Germany's Focus magazine.

According to Eastwood, there were no African-Americans in those films because there were no African-American soldiers involved in the specific battles he portrayed in film.

"Does he know anything about American history?" Eastwood said. "The U.S. military was segregated til the Korean War, and the blacks in World War Two were totally segregated. The only black battalion on Iwo Jima was a small munitions supply unit that came to the beach.

"The story was about the men who raised the flag and we can't make them black if they were not there. So tell him: Why don't you go back and study your history and stop mouthing off!"

Lee complained to Reuters that Hollywood "ignored" the role played by black American soldiers and has made a film about the racially segregated, all-black 92nd Buffalo Division which fought against Nazi occupation in Italy.

"Many black veterans who fought in Iwo Jima were hurt that there was no representation of them in both of those films," Lee had said back in a 2007 interview in Rome.

"Flags of Our Fathers" deals with the men who raised the flag while "Letters from Iwo Jima" takes a Japanese perspective of the battles.

"Very few Hollywood films deal with black soldiers," Lee said. "For the most part, if you look at the history of Hollywood cinema they haven't dealt with anybody other than white Americans. If you think Hollywood and World War Two, you think John Wayne -- the great white male that saved the world."