eye witness reports on Iwo Jima:
Raising the flag really began the bloodiest part of the war.
""They perfected the smokeless powder," he said.
"If they poked their rifle out of a little hole and fired you could hear the thing.
"If they missed you'd probably hear it and see the sand dance up around you but you could never look over and see where the thing came from.
"So it made it difficult and that's why casualties were so high, it was unbelievable."
Flag raising at Mt Suribachi 'energised' marines
After five days of fighting the marines took the strategic mountain of Suribachi.
At the summit Joe Rosenthal snapped the picture of the marines raising the US flag that became the iconic symbol of the war in the Pacific and for the US Marines.
The returning veterans relived that moment.
"The flag going up on Mount Suribachi, on Japanese territory, was something that we as marines really needed," Iwo Jima veteran Hershel Woodrow "Woody" Williams said.
"It gave us a lift, a spirit — it really energised us."
The raising of the flag should have been a fitting ending of the campaign, but it was just the beginning of a bloody battle of attrition.
Another month of fighting was to follow and of the six men in Mr Rosenthal's famous picture, three would die.
The battle turned to the interior and got nastier.
Every metre seemed to contain more bunkers and more artillery.
"It's the shock factor and if anything it increased as the time went on and it became more brutal," Mr Baker said.
"After a while, I wasn't shocked anymore and that's the worst thing for me.
"You just became like animals or a machine.""
sauce: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-27/battle-for-iwo-jima-in-wwii-remembered-70-years-on/6354688
Interesting: Rosenthal's famous picture
Is not the Rosenthal family deeply involved?