Description

An intense documentary about the US Marine assault on a significant Japanese island stronghold in the Pacific during World War II, this film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject in 1945. It was also a dramatic and eye-opening look at the brutal realities of war for much of America at the time. Over the course of a three-day battle, one of the bloodiest in Marine history, nearly 3,000 Americans and 5,000 Japanese were killed. Captain Louis Hayward, an established film and stage actor who led the Marines photographic division during his service, documented the entire event with his film crew. Bearing witness to this carnage would severely impact Hayward upon his return to civilian life(he would battle depression and eventually suffer a breakdown, as a result). Also notable is that Hayward was one of the earliest documented gays to serve in the military, while his footage stands as one of the first-ever examples of “embedded journalism.”