Why Can't You Visit Iwo Jima?

Iwo Jima became one of the most famous battlefields in American history. On February 23rd, 1945, Marines raised the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi, and the photograph of that moment became one of the most famous pictures ever taken. More than eighty years later, almost no one is allowed to set foot on the island. It's a Japanese military base, it goes by a different name, and American civilians can land there just one day a year. So why can't you visit Iwo Jima? And what is still out there today?

In this video, we follow the story of Iwo Jima: from the black sand beaches where nearly 7,000 Americans died and the flag raising on Mount Suribachi, to the day America handed the island back to Japan, the families who were never allowed to go home, the thousands of soldiers who are still missing under the ground, the island that is rising so fast that the ships the Navy sank there in 1945 are coming back out of the sea, and the one day each year when the last veterans come back.

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