USS Talladega (APA-208) earned seven battle stars for service in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, including the Iwo Jima and Okinawa Gunto operations, the 3rd Korean Winter, Korea, Summer-Fall (1953), the Vietnam Defense Campaign, and Vietnamese Counteroffensive Phases II and III. Commissioned on October 31, 1944, it was the first ship of a 31-ship convoy carrying occupation troops to dock at Yokohama on VJ Day, September 2, 1945, and it was struck from the Naval Register on September 1, 1976. The ship also appeared in the World War II film Battle Cry. Four Marines pictured in Joe Rosenthal's famous flag-raising photograph debarked from USS Talladega (208) to climb Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima: Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, Harlon Block, and Mike Strank; others were John Bradley and Rene Gagnon.