World War II Photograph

Sprawled face down in the soft volcanic dust of an Iwo Jima shell hole dug by the great guns of the U.S. fleet, a Marine finds his “journey’s end” on the tiny island which the Japanese defended with ferocious tenacity. A Coast Guard combat photographer, going in with the invaders, made this picture. Grimly symbolic of thecourage-unto-death with which the Marines fought their bitterest fight.