December 7, 1941--"a date which will live in infamy." The unprovoked attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet moored at Pearl Harbor is one of the key moments in modern history.

On August 7, 1942, more than 19,000 Marines invaded Guadalcanal with orders to seize and hold the tropical island. In the first US offensive of the Pacific War, these young Americans took on the seemingly invincible Japanese and fought.

On November 20, 1943, one of the most ferocious battles in US history began. The target--a tiny island called Tarawa. With its vital airfield, Tarawa was the first step in the island-hopping campaign that would lead to Japan.

June 15, 1944. Just over a week after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, on the other side of the world, 70,000 US Marines storm ashore on the Pacific island of Saipan.

On July 21, 1944, American Marines and GIs invade the island of Guam--once US territory. Over the next 21 days, this Japanese stronghold in the Mariana Islands would become a bitter and bloody battlefield.

October 20, 1944--US troops storm ashore on the island of Leyte. After two long years under Japanese occupation, the liberation of the Philippines has begun.

On February 19, 1945, men of the US Marine Corps invaded Iwo Jima. Over the next 36 days, the island became the site of a titanic struggle of sheer bloody will and determination.

It was the greatest and most costly American campaign in the Pacific Theater in which over a quarter of a million people lost their lives.