As Allied Forces broke through the German front and brought Hitler's army to it's knees in early 1945, the outcome of World War II Pacific campaigns had yet to be determined.

The U.S. declared war on Japan the day after Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor Hawaii. The Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai and Midway also were taken as the Japanese continued their furious assault in the Pacific Ocean.

At the height of its power, the Japanese Empire controlled all islands in the Philippine and South China seas, held much of China and had invaded Korea, Manchuria, Berma, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Half of New Guinea was under Japanese rule.

Over the next three years U.S. troops fought in places with names like Luzon, Bataan, Tarawa and Tinian.

One of the most crucial and bloodiest battles was held on the island of Iwo Jima.

The Fourth and Fifth Marine Divisions invaded Iwo Jima Feb. 19, 1945. The island was declared secure March 16, 1945, with the loss of 6,821 Americans. All the Japanese troops, 21,000 men, were dead.

An Associated Press photographer, Joe Rosenthal, snapped a picture of a flag raising Feb. 23, 1945, on Mount Suribachi.

The Associated Press transmitted the picture to its subscribers and the image became a symbol of U.S. victory in the Pacific.

That wasn't the only photograph Rosenthal took that day. After the flag raising, other Marines scaled Mount Suribachi posing with tired grins under the U.S. flag.

When Rosenthal was told his Iwo Jima picture was selected to win the Pulitzer Prize, according to legend, the photographer thought it was the group photo winning the award.

In the middle of the group stands Pfc. Fred Sisk of Warsaw, smiling and holding up his helmet.

Sisk was a 1941 graduate of Warsaw High School, a center, with the No. 1 uniform, on George Fisher's football team.

"We played football together," said Terry Klondaris, who wore No. 76 for the 1941 Tigers. "He was a hard-nosed football player, typical of what George Fisher coached back in those days."

Klondaris, 81, graduated from Warsaw in 1943. He joined the Air Force and was in bombardier school when the war ended.

"I was separated from service. We really were surplus. In case the atomic bomb didn't work they were gonna send me," Klondaris said of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. "From the time they dropped the second one it was over."

Sisk never made it home. According to newspaper reports, he was "wounded by a Jap sniper's bullet, which entered his abdomen and emerged from his right hip."

He was evacuated to a hospital on the Marianas Islands, and then to Hawaii, where he died.

Klondaris remembers "fearless" Fred as having the nicest personality and the best sense of humor.

Evidence of the friendship and that humor remains on the pages of the 1941 Tiger Yearbook. As was the custom of those days, seniors "willed" something to underclassmen.

Sisk bequeathed his "line to the girls to truthful Terry Klondaris."

Klondaris didn't remember this particular bit of trivia, but expected it would have helped him over the years.

"I always say whatever comes to my mouth," he said.

Rosenthal's group photo, with Sisk in the middle, is one of the last images shown during the credits of Clint Eastwood's movie "Flags of Our Fathers." The movie is about the battle of Iwo Jima and the story of the five Marines and Navy Corpsman who raised Old Glory.

Although he wasn't a Kosciusko County native, the late Harold Bryan who taught industrial arts at Warsaw High School for many years also saw action on Iwo Jima.

Bryan joined the Marines in February 1943. He grew up in Windfall, Ind. And graduated high school in 1942.

He served as an artilleryman 14th Marine Regiment of the Fourth Marine Division.

"He talked very little about the war," Edna Bryan, now 80, said of her late husband. Harold died in 1978. "But he did say once on Tinian he was running a message from company headquarters. He had just gotten away and the headquarters took a direct hit. It killed 10 officers and a commanding battalion."

According to his military record Bryan served in the Pacific theater, seeing battle on Roi-Namur, Tinian, Saipan, the Marshall Islands, the Marianas Island and Iwo Jima, arriving there Feb. 19, 1945, and not leaving until after the island was secure in March.

His company had 324 casualties.

"He did say they told him he was no good to the Marines if he was killed. So he wasn't supposed to die."

Harold and Edna met at Ball State University where he sought a teaching license and she studied nursing.

After graduation and a year of his teaching elsewhere, the Bryans moved to Warsaw in 1951.

She got a job at R.R. Donnelley & Sons in the medical department. Later she processed benefits and retired from the company.

The couple have three sons and a daughter. The oldest, James, and his wife Carole, live in St. Louis, Mo. They have two children. The second son, Joe, teaches at Warsaw and his wife Cindy teaches at Wawasee. They also have two children. Third son Jeff works at Zimmer. He is married to Cheri. Their daughter, Jenny, works at Donnelleys. [[In-content Ad]]