Market for Sands of Iwo Jima Just Ran Out
A U.S. Coast Guard technician who tried to sell $19 packets of the “sands of Iwo Jima” won’t get into trouble because no one responded to his advertisements, the military said.
Electronics technician George Wills ran classified ads last month in the Pacific Stars and Stripes, a U.S. military newspaper, offering a package that included the sand, a letter of authenticity, a history of “one of America’s bloodiest battles” in World War II and a color photograph of Mt. Surabachi, where the American flag was raised on invasion day.
U.S. military officials, checking a possible “misappropriation of property,” found Wills innocent, a military spokesman said.
Wills spent a year on the tiny island before being transferred to Guam last year.
About 30,000 U.S. Marines came ashore the 3,500-yard beach on Feb. 19, 1945, to begin a bloody five-week battle for control of the island. About 6,800 Americans and almost 20,000 Japanese died on Iwo Jima, 750 miles south of Tokyo.
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