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Gray, a graduate of rival University of Rhode Island, traded emails with McKillop and introduced himself when the Wildcats later played at Rhode Island. Gray talked about wanting to work on a project with a college or university, and McKillop knew Wertheimer had started experimenting with documentaries.

“I said, ‘How about this idea of working with the �ʼһ��� History Department,” McKillop recalled.

Wertheimer first offered his “Filming Southern History” class three years ago. He team teaches with filmmakers who cover the technical parts of the projects. So when McKillop raised the idea of working with Gray, it didn’t seem like an unfamiliar world.

“It’s conveying historical knowledge in another way,” Wertheimer said, “to a different public.”

Some of Gray’s documentaries focus on individual battles, and Iwo Jima has long been on his list. The battle in the war’s final months proved pivotal to Allied success in the Pacific. Japanese fighters based at Iwo Jima posed a formidable obstacle to Allied bombing raids on Japan.

“The B-29s, our biggest planes…were being shot down by Japanese planes flying out of Iwo Jima,” said Sam Maloney, a 1948 graduate of �ʼһ��� and former chair of the Religion Department, who flew B-24 bomber missions out of Okinawa at the same time.

Capturing the island proved more costly for the United States than expected. American forces bogged down in soft, black volcanic ash on the beach, and Japanese forces burrowed into fortified bunkers and an 11-mile network of tunnels in the mountains.

The American victory, after five weeks instead of the expected few days, created what may be Americans’ most familiar war image: six U.S. Marines planting their nation’s flag on Mount Suribachi. The flag-raising and the battle spurred images for postage stamps, the name of a U.S. Navy ship, the statue at the Marine Corps memorial near Washington, D.C., a film starring John Wayne and two directed by Clint Eastwood—one from the perspective of each side.

It was not back home and amid the support of family that they laid their brothers-in-arms to rest, but on the battlefield. Clark described it as “adding another layer” to the story.

“These two gentlemen crying by their friend’s grave,” Clark said, “are not significantly older than me.”

Charlotte Jenkins, a third-year �ʼһ��� student from Montclair, New Jersey, came across a now-obscure song recorded by Johnny Cash in 1964 about Ira Hayes, a Pima Native American who was among the flag raisers in the famous Iwo Jima photo. The ballad captures his trials after the war with post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism. He died in 1955, near his home in Arizona, of alcohol poisoning and exposure to the cold.

“His story is representative of both the heroism in World War II and the inability to cope with reality after the war, coming back to a world where it wasn’t like that anymore,” Jenkins said. “Even though we can’t relate to the physical experiences of warfare, there’s an emotional unity. These were people our age who were thrown into this unimaginable experience.”

The students brought these pieces to Gray, along with reflections of other rarely heard perspectives. They tapped material in the National Archives never before used.

“Their enthusiasm for the whole project was off the charts,” Gray said. “They each brought something different.”

He plans to film on Iwo Jima in September, as Japan permits visitors only once a year, and release the completed film next year. Wertheimer’s students will be watching…and in the credits.