February 23, 1945, Marines Raise the Flag on Mount Suribachi
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Photos: USMC
On February 23, 1945, World War II was continuing to rage across the globe. In Europe, brutal winter fighting continued as Germany was being squeezed from two sides: in the west by the Americans and British, who had recovered from the German offensive during the Battle of the Bulge, and in the east by the Russians.
In the Pacific, the Japanese were putting up fanatical resistance in the Philippines and elsewhere. And a tiny, just eight-square-mile volcanic speck of an island called Iwo Jima would be the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.
Roy Exum: Our Flag At Iwo Jima Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - by Roy Exum
Roy Exum
This morning marks the 76
th anniversary of the sun coming up on Mount Suribachi and, as it lit the dawn, every warrior in one of the most merciless battles in the Pacific theater could see the American flag on the crest of the 554-feet-tall hill. The battle to secure the island was perhaps the most intense fighting in World War II.
Almost 7,000 Marines and Navy Seabees were killed on the heavily fortified 8-square-mile island between February 19 and March 26 in 1945 while the Japanese lost approximately - get this number 28,000. (Remember, in just five weeks!) Only 214 of the enemy were able to surrender after five weeks of horrors, with as many as 3,000 Japanese hiding in the 11 miles of tunnels on the three-by-five-mile island.