American M4 "Sherman" flamethrower tank is firing on Japanese positions on Iwo Jima.  Marines in their foxhole look on.

Flamethrower tank

In a picture that captures the violence and sheer destruction inherent in war perhaps more graphically than any other ever published in LIFE, Marines take cover on an Iwo Jima hillside amid the burned-out remains of banyan jungle, as a Japanese bunker is obliterated in March 1945.

Wonder if these men had any hearing left? At least they must have ended up with a horrible lifelong tinnitus.

Iwo Jima 

The commander of the 2nd Marine Division, US Major General Thomas E. Watson (1892-1966) stands with a Marine in front of a Japanese tank Type 97 "Chi-Ha" on Saipan.