Dawn Over Mount Suribachi

From the top of Mount Suribachi the landing beaches run north along Iwo Jima's southeastern shore. Four days before the flag went up, that was where it all started.

H-hour was 9:00 a.m. on February 19, 1945. The first armored amphibian tractors touched down at 9:02, with the troop waves minutes behind them: the 5th Marine Division on the beaches code-named Green and Red, the 4th on Yellow and Blue. Then the island showed its first surprise. The beach was not sand so much as loose volcanic ash, and men sank ankle deep in it. Behind the waterline rose terraces as much as 15 feet high.

All eight assault battalions were ashore by 10:30. By nightfall six infantry regiments, six artillery battalions and two tank battalions had landed and dug in, at a cost of 2,420 casualties on the first day, 501 of them killed in action.

The painting looks out from the summit in a soft, early light. The sky is pale gold and rose, the sea below is calm and hazy, and a strip of coastline fades off to the right. The Marines are dark shapes against all that light, two of them reaching up with open hands, the last man crouched low on the rocks as the flag lifts into the wind.