For 'Sands of Iwo Jima,' Wayne won his first Academy Award nomination in a role that presented him again as a ruthless leader of men, this time the toughest leatherneck, hated and then loved for his hardness:'In boot camp you learned the book. Out here, you gotta remember the book and learn a thousand things that have never been printed, probably never will be. You gotta learn and you gotta learn fast. And any man that doesn't want to cooperate, I'll make him wish he hadn't been born. Before I'm through with you, you're gonna move like one man and think like one man. If you don't, you're dead.'



Wayne plays Sergeant Stryker, a battle-hardened U.S. Marine training a company of raw recruits in New Zealand... He is merciless to his men... They are consistently kept on the go ('If you're nervous, count your toes. I'll do the masterminding around here.'), and they detest him...



The conflict focuses on Stryker and Private First Class Conway (John Agar) who in the end will assume Stryker's position...



At the Battle of Tarawa, one of the bloodiest fights of the whole Pacific campaign, director Allan Dwan establishes his ground rules for describing combat, mixing authentic combat footage with shots of his actors... The few casualties in Stryker's company justifies his methods, and the men begin to respect him...



Allan Dwan's 'Sands of Iwo Jima', anticipated the new vogue for action-packed war movies... His film is quite hypnotic in its flag-waving way...