In 2016, I was afforded an extremely rare chance to visit the historic Japanese island of Iwo Jima while deployed with the Liberty Bells of VAW-115. The island is home to a small Japanese airbase, but the U. S. Navy is allowed to use it for carrier landing practice. Extremely remote and unforgiving, the tropical island is densely overgrown and littered with WWII relics: everywhere you walk, you do so in the footsteps of the thousands of soldiers who died there.
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- Mt. Suribachi: site of the famous raising of the flag.
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- Invasion beach: landing site of the U. S. Marines to capture the island from the Japanese.
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- A view of Shipwreck Beach from the top of Suribachi.
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- A closer look at Shipwreck Beach. The color contrast of the sky, water, and beach was truly a photographer’s dream.
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- A close-up of some wrecked ships.
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- The wreck of an old cargo plane in the jungle. We literally just climbed up inside that thing.
