Pictures

American POWs celebrate the 4th of July of 1942 in a Japanese prison camp. This could've been punishable by death. 40% of American POWs in Japanese died while in captivity, while only 1.2 percent of Amercian POWs died while in German and Italian custody.

Five marines and a Navy hospital corpsman raise a flag on Mount Surubachi, Iwo Jima, using a piece of Japanese pipe as the flag pole, February 23, 1945. Three of the flag raisers, along with 6,818 other Americans, were later killed in that battle.

40mm guns of the USS Hornet fire at the Japanese suicide dive bombers while the carrier's own planes were raiding Tokyo, February 16, 1945. By the end of the war, Japan had sent an estimagted 2,257 Kamikaze planes into battle.

In an underground surgery room behind front lines in Bouganville, the Soloman Islands, a U.S. doctor operates on a soldier wounded by a Japanese sniper.

A Japanese Zero shot down as it attempted to attack the USS Kitkun Bay near the Mariana Islands. Kamikaze pilots would fly their aircrafts into U.S. ships.