The United States Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial) is a national memorial located in Arlington County, Virginia, in the United States. The memorial was dedicated in 1954 to all Marines who have given their lives in defense of the United States since 1775.
The war memorial was inspired by the iconic 1945 photograph of six Marines raising a U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II taken by Associated Press combat photographer Joe Rosenthal.
Upon first seeing the photograph, sculptor Felix de Weldon created a maquette for a sculpture based on the photo in a single weekend at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland, where he was serving in the Navy. He and architect Horace W. Peaslee designed the memorial. Their proposal was presented to Congress, but funding was not possible during the war. In 1947, a federal foundation was established to raise funds for the memorial.
The centerpiece of the memorial is a colossal sculpture group depicting the six Marines who raised the second and largest of two U.S. flags that were both raised atop Mount Suribachi located at the south end of Iwo Jima, on February 23, 1945. The first flag flown over the mountain was regarded to be too small to be seen by all the American troops on the other side of it where most of the fighting would take place, so it was replaced by a larger flag.