IWO Jima Battle: A photo history

IWo Jima was always a volcano ball surrounded by a beautiful, cobalt sea. However, 80 years of World War II war, 80 years ago, this month turned into a word for a promise, deadly war and American victory this month.

On February 23, 1945, the contingent of the American Maritime Pedestrian, the highest point of Ivo Jima was climbed into the top of Suribachi Mountain. The war and volcanic eruption was progressing in the demolition and raised the American flag. A photographer for the Associated Press, Joe Rosenthal took a picture of an image, deleted and marked.

My father, Keyes Beech was there, and there was in the Pacific in the Pacific on the island. The fifth section in the US Marine Corps was a technical sergeant joined in a department that is not active in the peaceful period. The work of the fight as the correspondent expressed his American ray and I hope he had to write about victory. However, despite the four days of the famous flag fight, another month did not come.

The stars and strips per day – twice, for good measure – for good measurement – said that he was trapped in Foxhole, in the end, after one of his friends, then another, then else.

Once on an island, the size of the international airport today, which is less than eight square miles, the size of the Americans and Japanese today decreased by a kind of cage. Iwo jima means “sulfur island” in Japanese and The Emperor Army of Japan strengthened caves with tunnels and other defenses. Slipped on the handed island. His bluffs and beaches, the wide cemetery, volcanic ash and black sand that buried the dead.

About 70,000 American soldiers fought to get IWO Jima. More than 6,500 people died. 20,000 or more of Japanese defending the island were killed in about 19,000 battles. Some died in a recent banzai charges; Others have completed their lives rather than surrender to Americans. Until 1949, the caves were hiding in Warren two and changed four years after the war about four years.

On March 26, 1945, Ivo Jima became the first part of Japanese lands to be officially seized by Americans. Less than five months, the Japanese Emperor, the shorter of Asia, which cuts a short million people, surrendered with an emperor March. Both atomic and the flared American bombs also destroyed Japan.

After the war, the United States established a military base in Iwo Jima. In 1968, the island was re-issued to Japan. In 1944, the evacuated Japanese villagers, as prepared for the battle from the island, did not return. In 2007, the island was officially called IWO, because he used a different pronunciation of the word “ADA” and was known before the war.

My father did not tell many of the world war, like many veterans. Did not catch a grudge. He lived for about 30 years in Japan and married a Japanese woman and my mother.

In the Pacific, including other battles, which Americans could not win. But Iwo pierced him when he called him. The American soldiers who are still fighting with the Pacific Ocean Theater, I joined the Father’s War Bond Tour, along with the soldiers who lifted a number of flags around the United States and came to reconcile the soldiers that appeared in World War.

They drank a lot. It was a way back to that time. The term “traumatic stress disorder” was not available.

When in high school, we walked in the Washington area in Nissan or Plymouth – We had a car for each country – and sometimes the Bronze statue of Mr. Rosenthal’s photographs. My father would go quiet. One hand remained on the steering wheel. He took my hand with another. I knew to squeeze back.