At 9.00am on 19 February 1945, the soldiers of the United States Marine Corps 5th Division, H Company lowered themselves down rope cargo nets into landing crafts rocking in five-foot seas. They were less than a mile from the shore of the remote Pacific island of Iwo Jima. H Company was made up mostly of 18 to 20-year-old boys who had been training for this day for over a year. For most of them, Iwo Jima was their first time in combat. The boys knew little of the island. They had seen mock-ups in briefings but nothing could have prepared them for what lay ahead on the black sand beaches of 'Iwo'.