The statue has been nine years in the making. It is modeled after the photograph snapped by Joe Rosenthal, then with the Associated Press, on the morning of February 23, 1945. Rosenthal was in the Pacific an assignment with the wartime picture pool. Almost immediately upon release of the picture which soon won world wide fame, Feliz De Welden, an internationally known sculptor on duty with the Navy, constructed a scale model of the scene. A life-sized plaster model followed. Heroic sized heads of the six Marines who participated in the flag-raising were then modeled in clay, over steel framework. Legs, arms, hands and shoes, in plaster, were added. The completed plaster model of the entire group in heroic size was cut into 108 pieces, then cast in bronze and welded together at the Bedi-Rassy Art Foundry in Brooklyn. Three trucks were needed to haul the statue to Washington for final assembling. Various stages in the making of the giant memorial are pictured on October 9, 1954. (Photo by AP Photo)





Leon Samson, 24-year-old showman, grimaces as an automobile is driven across his chest at Perth, Australia on October 9, 1960. Samson said the towel on his chest is to prevent the wheel from tearing his flesh. (Photo by AP Photo)





Amphibians Dukws, better known to the men as ducks are doing a big job in keeping Allied invading forces supplied. Ducks transporting petrol from Messina in Sicily to the Italian mainland. A fleet of Dukws on their way to the Italian mainland, on October 9, 1943. (Photo by AP Photo)





Wind and torrents of rain from hurricane Flora are pictured lashing this lighthouse on Buba's northeast coast as Associated Press staff photographer Jim Kerlin flew over a portion of the island on a flight to hurricane stricken Haiti. Huge waves at the top of the photo sweep toward the light house at an unknown position on the Cuban coast shown October 9, 1963. (Photo by Jim Kerlin/AP Photo)





In this photo provided by the U.S. Navy, the USS Macon is shown as it sails over lower Manhattan on October 9, 1933. (Photo by AP Photo/U.S. Navy)





Hotel El Presidente, located in the beach resort town of Ixtapa, tilts precariously toward the Pacific Ocean after a tidal wave brought on by hurricane Madeline ate away the foundations. Two men in foreground survey the damage. Madeline came ashore near Ixtapa, Mexico on Friday, October 9, 1976, killing at least two persons and injuring nine others. (Photo by AP Photo/HEM)





Cambodian woman and a little girl try to salvage belongings from what was once their home in Taing Kauk, about 47 miles North of Phnom Penh on October 9, 1970. Enemy forces occupied the village, then repulsed a Cambodian counter attack. The Cambodian forces used air and artillery strikes to drive the enemy out, resulting in flattening almost the entire village. The villagers had fled when the enemy arrived. (Photo by Ghislain Bellorget/AP Photo)





Israeli troops carry a squatter from a site near Joricho north of the Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank of Jordan on Wednesday, October 9, 1974. Rightwing groups attempted to establish settlement in the area in advance of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's visit. The squatters hoped to influence possible negotiations of territory with Jordanians. (Photo by Max Nash/AP Photo)





Shopkeeper in the Egyptian city of Asyut raises his arms in exasperation on October 9, 1981, after he said police looted his wares in the wake of a 24-hours gun battle between police, aided by the army, and Islamic extremists. (Photo by AP Photo/JJ)





View of a massive demonstration against the Shah of Iran in downtown Tehran, Iran, October 9, 1978. (Photo by Michel Lipchitz/AP Photo)





Two months old baby in Tokyo's chic Roppongi district on October 9, 1984. Japan's babies are reputedly the most pampered lot in the world. (Photo by Sonia Katchian/AP Photo)





Massi supporters of Kenya's President Daniel Arap Moi shown in a picture dated 9 October 1992 in Nairobi as they sing and dance with photos of Moi wich marks the 14th anniversary of his coming to power. (Photo by Alexander Joe/AFP Photo)