Wood was a twenty-two-year-old naval communications officer for a landing ship, the Navy vessel LST-779, at the Battle of Iwo Jima. After five days of fighting, the U.S. Marines had managed to take the summit of Mount Suribachi, the highest point on the island. On February 23, 1945, a United States Marine asked Wood for the largest American flag he could find; Wood gave him the flag he had found in Hawaii. Five Marines and a navy corpsman would later raise Wood's flag atop Mount Suribachi in an iconic photograph which was taken by Associated Press reporter Joe Rosenthal. The photograph became one of the most iconic images of World War II.