Original - Two Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment during fighting at Wana Ridge during the Battle of Okinawa, May 1945. On the left, Davis Hargraves (1925-) provides covering fire with his M1 Thompson submachine gun as Gabriel Chavarria (on the right; 1926-), with a Browning Automatic Rifle, prepares to break cover to move to a different position. Wana Ridge was a long coral spine running out of northern Shuri Hill and was lined on both sides with Okinawan tombs. Japanese emplacements in the tombs and on the reverse slope of the ridge forced the Marines to carefully fight their way through the fortifications.
Reason
A dramatic, good quality image of historical interest and which effectively shows employment of infantry combat tactics in a real life situation. The photo was unsuccessfully nominated in 2005 [1] but a recently published book has provided additional information and context about the photo [2].
Support as nominator --Cla68 (talk) 21:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Blown highlights. --Uncle Bungle (talk) 18:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC) (forgot to login)[reply]
Comment Though storming Okinawa might have been difficult, and historically important, this isn't much of a picture. --Uncle Bungle (talk) 18:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. A rare and powerful shot. The well-presented, well-sourced contextual information more than makes up for the technical weaknesses.--ragesoss (talk) 00:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. If I was a soldier and I was under fire, and I saw some civilian guy taking pictures of me, I'd better end up being a featured pic! LOL oh yeah and for the reasons already stated. Intothewoods29 (talk) 02:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Quality is too low - white dust/blotches, contrast problem, plus what looks like slight posterization & compression artifacts. --Janke | Talk 12:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I have to agree with Janke...quality is way too low to allow me to support. SpencerT♦C 20:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Comparing the first and second versions, it's apparent that the photo was adjusted. Also, it seems something was removed from the sky near the top left corner. Can you detail the ways in which this was manipulated? Fg2 (talk) 12:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think this will be worth featuring once a good restoration job has been done on it. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 10:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support thought it was already featured. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not promoted --jjron (talk) 08:31, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
![[2]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image%3AWw2_158.jpg&diff=14204191&oldid=9053785){kind=link}