Iwo Jima — the Pacific island transformed into an iconic World War II symbol with the famous photograph of five Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman hoisting a flag aloft on Mount Suribachi — was wrestled from Japanese troops to provide runways to American bombers too battle-damaged or otherwise unable to return to their home bases.
“We were on an emergency landing of our own,” said Topekan Jim Marshall, a radio operator aboard a massive B-29 Superfortress bomber during the war.