The island of Iwo Jima, assaulted by the Marine Corps in February 1945, represents in the popular memory of World War II a single iconic image: the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi.

But Iwo Jima was also one of the most brutal and costly amphibious operations the Marine Corps ever conducted, and the communications demands of that operation were enormous.

Navajo Code Talkers served throughout the Iwo Jima campaign.

The density of Code Talker presence in the Marine divisions that assaulted the island reflected how central the system had become to Marine communications by 1945 — no longer an experimental adjunct but a core capability that commanders planned around and depended on.

Major Howard Connor, the signal officer for the Fifth Marine Division during the Iwo Jima operation, is frequently quoted as having said that he could not have conducted the operation without the Navajo Code Talkers.

This statement, which appears in various forms in the historical record and in postwar documentation, reflects the assessment of a communications professional who had used the system in one of the most demanding operational environments of the war.