A New York Times bestseller. In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima - and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag. John Bradley, one of the flag raisers immortalized in the famous photograph, never spoke to his family of the war. But after his death at age 70, his family discovered boxes of letters and photos. His son, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of his Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island.