The tide of the war in the Pacific turned swiftly against the Japanese, and Americans began hopscotching their way across the islands in the South, approaching gradually, but steadily, nearer the Japanese homeland. Every island closer to mainland Japan offered stiffer resistance. Iwo Jima was the next-to-last island to take: after Iwo Jima, it was almost clear sailing to Tokyo, Japan.

On this day, February 19, 1945, the largest naval armada in the war assembled off the coast of the 8 sq. ft. island. More than 450 ships total, including numerous heavy battleships and cruisers, concentrated fire on the island for hours straight, completing a pre-landing “softening up” campaign that began more than a year prior.

One of the most iconic scenes of the war took place during the battle for Iwo Jima. As the American Marines took Mount Suribachi, the volcano in the middle of the island, they raised up an American flag. But secretary of the Navy on the ground decided to take that flag for himself as a souvenir. Colonel Chandler Johnson, commander of the unit on the mountain, had no desire to give it up, and found another, larger flag to bring to the top of the mountain. It was the raising of that second flag that war journalist Joe Rosenthal captured in his immortal photograph: Marines planting the Stars and Stripes on top of Iwo Jima.