James Baquet It was an iconic photograph later made into an equally impressive bronze statue standing 32 feet tall with a 60-foot flagpole at its center. It stands near Arlington National Cemetery, outside Washington, D.C. and is formally called the Marine Corps War Memorial. But most people know it as “The Iwo Jima Memorial.” The photo was taken on Feb. 23, 1945, on the tiny 21-square-kilometer Japanese island of Iwo Jima, 1,200 kilometers south of Tokyo. It shows six U.S. marines raising a flag on Mount Suribachi, the highest point on this very flat volcanic island. It does not, however, show the moment of ultimate victory, but rather a step toward it. After the U.S. troops took Mount Suribachi from the Japanese, it was still over a month of grueling fighting, often hand-to-hand combat, before the island was secured. Despite the island’s diminutive size, the Battle of Iwo Jima is considered one of the major engagements in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The Japanese had established three airfields on the island, from which they launched air raids on the Mariana Islands. Once captured, those same airfields could be used to assist in missions for bombing the Japanese mainland. The battle lasted five weeks, and was considered one of the bloodiest of the war. The U.S. landed 110,000 troops and had over 26,000 casualties, including over 6,800 dead and over 19,200 wounded. The Japanese had from 20,000 to 21,000 troops, and lost around 18,000, with 216 more taken prisoner and perhaps 3,000 remaining in hiding in a vast network of tunnels and bunkers. Most of these may have died of injuries sustained or starvation; some surrendered later, the last two on Jan. 6, 1949, nearly four years after the battle. It is said that Iwo Jima was the only battle in which marine casualties exceeded those of the Japanese; nevertheless, three times as many Japanese were killed as Americans. Sadly, the island’s strategic importance never materialized. Bombing missions continued to launch from the Marianas, and the Japanese continued to use other airbases on scattered islands. The war was over in August of that year. Vocabulary: Which word above means: 1. a metal made of copper and tin 2. exhausting; severe 3. suffered; undergone 4. underground fortifications 5. tiny 6. formed by volcano 7. symbolically significant 8. came into being 9. monument to preserve the memory of a person or event 10. most violent | 