Eighty years after the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, Leighton Willhite traveled to the National Museum of the Marine Corps’ support facility in Virginia for a reunion, of sorts, with the M4A3 Sherman tank that he drove onto the beaches of Iwo Jima.

Now 100, Willhite stood beside the tank, “Lucky,” on Aug. 15, the 80th anniversary of the announcement of Japan’s surrender in World War II, according to a museum news release. Lucky is one of just six surviving Sherman tanks that saw combat on Iwo Jima.

“It’s amazing,” Willhite said in the news release. “I never thought I would see the tank again. That tank was my life.”

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