Battle of Iwo Jima

Battle of Iwo Jima

A Navy Chaplain on Iwo Jima: Doing God’s Work in Hell

BACKSTORY: The Reverend E. Gage Hotaling, the son of a Baptist minister, was born in Wellsville, New York, on January 21, 1916. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Sgt. John Basilone: Marine Hero of Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima

“Banzai! Banzai!” screamed the Japanese at the top of their lungs as they launched a ferocious night attack against Marines dug in on Guadalcanal. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Faces of the U.S. Marine Corps

Noted chronicler of the Pacific Theater Eric Hammel recently spent three years sorting, scanning, cleaning, selecting, and captioning United States Marine Corps World War II photos for six pictorial books. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Joseph Bale: Naval Ensign at Iwo Jima

“There’s no greater feeling in the world than seeing Old Glory in a winning position.” Twenty-one-year-old U.S. Navy Ensign Joseph Bale watched the American flag raising on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi from aboard the attack transport USS Dickens County Texas. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

The National Museum of the Marine Corps

Twenty miles outside Washington, D.C., at Quantico, Virginia, motorists traveling on Interstate 95 will come upon an unusual building that is clearly visible, day or night. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Japan’s Underwater Aircraft Carriers

Lieutenant Commander Stephen L. Johnson had a problem on his hands; a very large problem. His Balao-class submarine, the Segundo, had just picked up a large radar contact on the surface about 100 miles off Honshu, one of Japan’s home islands, heading south toward Tokyo.  Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Military Book Reviews: George S. Patton and Erwin Rommel

American General George S. Patton, Jr., and German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel both demonstrated the masterful employment of armored forces in many World War II military campaigns. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima: The Story of the Photo

By Chris McGowan

Atop 550-foot Suribachi Yama, the volcano at the southwest tip of Iwo Jima, Marines of the 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment, 5th Division, hoist the Stars and Stripes, signaling the capture of this key position. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Prelude to Iwo Jima: The Japanese Assault On B-29 Base On Marianas

From an altitude of 30,000 feet, the swift Japanese reconnaissance aircraft flew high over Saipan and Tinian, photographing the brisk and extensive engineering effort under way on the American airfields far below. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Fighting Coast Guard at Iwo Jima

Standing on an ugly carbuncle of volcanic rock 500 feet above the Pacific Ocean, the Associated Press photographer swung a cumbersome news camera toward six men holding a pipe with a flag tied to it and pressed the shutter release. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

The Chance-Vought F4U Corsair: Whistling Death in the South Pacific

Thanks to the rather far-fetched mid-1970s TV series Black Sheep Squadron, the bent-wing image of the Chance-Vought F4U Corsair is no doubt one of the most vivid of the World War II fighters in the minds of most Americans. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

The USS Goodhue & A Torrent of Kamikazes at Okinawa

More than 60 years ago, in April 1945, the war in Europe was winding down to its inevitable conclusion. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

“This is the Army”: Irving Berlin’s War

The most successful and popular patriotic show of World War II and one of the most unique productions in the history of entertainment was Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army, which originally began as a Broadway musical. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

First Casualties at Iwo Jima

Lieutenant Harold Gilson Payne, Jr., was one of the first Americans to die at Iwo Jima. He did not fall in the carnage of the Marine invasion that began on February 19, 1945. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Joe Rosenthal: Flag-Raising Photographer

The “Raising of the Flag” photo taken by 33-year-old Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on the fifth day of the Iwo Jima battle provided the world with a much-needed uplifting symbol in February 1945. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Means of Grace, Hope of Glory

They carried no weapons, only holy books and rudimentary vestments, a crucifix or a Star of David and sometimes a little Communion kit. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

WWII Vehicles: The Island-Hopping LVT

While making business calls in Tampa, Florida, during the summer of 1980, I spotted a strange looking tracked contraption atop an overgrown pedestal in front of the U.S. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Who Really Raised the Flag on Iwo Jima?

The Marine Corps announced this Wednesday, August 24, 2016 that it has revised the identification of two of the men who raised the first flag on Iwo Jima. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

Dickey Chapelle: First Female Photojournalist Killed in Action

Colonel H.B. Miller, a Marine public relations officer on Guam during World War II, looked up from his desk to see before him a boyish-looking woman dressed in a baggy khaki shirt and pants and wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Read more

Battle of Iwo Jima

The OSS: Assisting French Resistance in the Haute Savoie Region

On a moonless night in January 1944, in the Haute Savoie region of southeast France, the drone from the engine of a RAF bomber could be heard in the distance. Read more