Fourth Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima

After his death on February 27, 1945, Medal of Honor recipient and Bibb County native Ross Franklin Gray was buried in the Fourth Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima, Japan. His body was reinterred later in Ada Chapel Bible Methodist Church in Bibb County. The area beyond the Marine cemetery illustrates some of the carnage from the intense fighting on the island, considered among the most severe experienced by U.S. forces during World War II. Mount Suribachi stands in the background, and its peak is the location where the iconic photograph of American soldiers raising the flag was taken, becoming a symbol of the U.S. Marines and World War II.

Photo courtesy of the United States Navy