Hershel W “Woody” Williams was a 21-year-old Marine Corps corporal when he watched from the bloodied, ashy beaches of Iwo Jima as the Stars and Stripes rose atop Mount Suribachi on 23 February 1945.
Captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, the scene became one of the most indelible images of the Second World War and the inspiration for the Marine Corps War Memorial near Arlington National Cemetery – a moment of American heroism cast in bronze.
