Photo Album

Gallery

Lieutenant (j.g.) George T. Ferguson, MC USN, medical officer of the USS Guam, 1939. Courtesy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Archives.

Lucille Ferguson holding a photograph of her husband, George. “Wherever I am,” he said, “I still love you.” Courtesy Lucille Ferguson.

Lucille Ferguson (third row, left, seated) catches a show in Shanghai while George is upriver on the Yangtze Patrol. Courtesy Lucille Ferguson.

Lieutenant (j.g.) Ferdinand V. Berley, MC USN (l.),and Lieutenant Commander “Butch” Parker (r.) of the USS Parrott, out on the town in Tsingtao, 1939. Courtesy Ferdinand V. Berley.

Lieutenant (j.g.) John Jacob Bookman, MC USNR, in New York City, 1941. Courtesy Ann and Richard Bookman.

Lieutenant (j.g.) Murray Glusman, MC USNR, en route to the Philippines on the President Garfield, August 1941. “As the ship slowly pulled away… I saw the last thin tie that bound me to the life I had known & loved just flutter to the pier & into the bay to become no more than a bit of refuse.” Author’s collection.

Laura Reade, née Reichmann, America’s “Baby Opera star,” said the Philadelphia Ledger of the 17-year-old coloraturo soprano who captured Murray’s heart. Courtesy Gerald Blank.

The Japanese attack the Cavite Navy Yard, home of the U.S. Navy’s Asiatic Fleet, two days after Pearl Harbor. “Walls of flame leapt out of the earth, plumes of thick, oily smoke boiled up into the sky. Then a bomb hit the brig above the old paint locker. ‘Jesus Christ,’ Murray thought, ‘the war has just begun and I’m going to die.’” National Archives (SC 130991).

The remains of the Cavite Navy Yard, PI, after the Japanese aerial attack of December 10, 1941. Official Navy Photo USN 46882, released by the Department of Defense on December 7, 1944.

A captured Japanese photograph showing soldiers on the march as Manila burns in the distance shortly after enemy troops invaded Luzon in December 1941. National Archives (SC-334277).

“The fighting on Bataan was ‘fantastically improbable,’ Wainwright remarked, as junior officers rode atop tank hoods and tossed grenades into foxholes to flush out pockets of Japanese infiltrators. When the return fire was too hot, bow-hunting Igorot tribesmen and head-hunting Negritoes from Brigadier General William E. Brougher’s 11th Division volunteered to take their place and directed tank drivers by banging on one steel side or another with a wooden club.” National Archives (SC-334290).

The Japanese celebrate victory on Bataan in the spring of 1942. Reproduced from an illustration that appeared in a captured Japanese publication. Source: The War Against Japan: Pictorial Record, United States Army in World War II, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. 1952.

A captured Japanese war photograph shows Japanese soldiers firing a howitzer. “Immediately after King’s capitulation, the Japanese began making preparations for their final offensive. They started by moving 250 field pieces ranging from 75mm guns to 240mm howitzers to the south face of Mt. Mariveles and along the southeast coast of Bataan.” National Archives (SC-334267).

An aerial view of Corregidor, separated from the southern tip of Bataan by the North Channel, and from the island of Caballo by the South Channel. Source: The War Against Japan: Pictorial Record, United States Army in World War II, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., 1952, p. 35.

On December 25, 1941, headquarters of the United States Army Forces in the Far East was established on Corregidor deep inside Malinta Tunnel. “The absence of daylight, the strange ‘bluish glow’ of fluorescent bulbs, the sense of confinement made some feel as if they were living in a prison.” Source: The War Against Japan: Pictorial Record, United States Army in World War II, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. , 1952, p. 46.

A coastal defense gun on “The Rock.” From The War Against Japan: Pictorial Record, United States Army in World War II, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. , 1952, p. 47.

12-inch mortars on Corregidor in fixed gun emplacements were open to aerial attack and artillery shelling. Source: The War Against Japan: Pictorial Record, United States Army in World War II, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., 1952, p. 47.

In the trenches in the west sector of Corregidor. National Archives (Signal Corps Photo from “Yank”).

Japanese boats approach the doomed garrison of Corregidor in the early morning hours of May 6, 1942. National Archives (SC-334307).

A captured Japanese photograph shows troops landing on Corregidor on May 6, 1942.
National Archives (SC-334276).

Americans and Filipinos raise their hands in surrender on Corregidor on May 7, 1942 for a Japanese 14th Army photograph. National Archives (SC 334296).

The desolation of Corregidor the day after its capitulation, looking south toward Malinta Tunnel. In the foreground, Japanese troops watch a group of Filipino POWS. National Archives (SC-282343).

A captured Japanese photograph depicting Lieutenant General Jonathan M. “Skinny” Wainwright broadcasting his announcement of the surrender of Corregidor and the fortified islands over KZRH on May 7, 1942. “It was almost midnight by the time he delivered his address. His voice was uncharacteristically husky and laden with emotion. The transmission was picked up by commercial radio in San Francisco, re-transmitted to the War Department, and analyzed by the psychological warfare branch of Army Intelligence as well as Wainwright’s family and friends. They were convinced that the voice was not Wainwright’s.” Courtesy National Archives (SC-334280).

The New York Herald Tribune ran the names and photographs of New Yorkers listed as “Missing.” “The men were all part of the Navy’s Fourth Casualty List, which covered the period from April 16-May 10, 1942. To rub salt in the wound, the War Department asked the public to refrain from requesting further information. ‘To comply,’ Under-Secretary of War Patterson explained, ‘is humanly impossible at a time when military communications are strained to the utmost.’” Author's collection.

An aerial photograph of Bilibid Prison in Manila. The dotted line in the center is on the wall that separated the prisoners’ area from the Japanese quarters. Other numbered areas are as follows: 1) staff quarters; 2) the diet kitchen; and 5) the guard house. Courtesy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Archives.

A pre-war postcard of Bilibid Prison. “They carried with them their individual visions of hell as surely as schoolboys were haunted, Wordsworth wrote, by ‘shades of the prison-house.’ But nothing could have prepared them for Bilibid.” Courtesy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Archives.

American and Filipino prisoners, captured on Corregidor, arrive at Bilibid under Japanese guard on May 25, 1942. Those too weak or sick to walk were hauled by truck. National Archives (Signal Corps Photo from “Yank”).

Private James W. Carrington of the 4th Marines was the only successful escapee from Bilibid Prison. Pictured here (center) he joined Lieutenant Edwin Price Ramsey's East Central Luzon Guerrilla Area in the spring of 1944, and was commissioned as a lieutenant, responsible for headquarters security forces. Courtesy James W. Carrington.

American soldiers, sailors and Marines abandoned by the Japanese in Bilibid Prison on February 3, 1945, as American troops fought to liberate Manila. Photographer: Mikolski. National Archives (SC 203017).

Freed from Bilibid, Captain Fred. G. Nasr of the U.S. Army Dental Corps, holds three jars -- one with rice, one with corn, and the third on the right containing soybeans -- representing more than one day’s ration awarded prisoners of the Japanese. Courtesy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Archives.

Thinned to the point of emaciation by malnutrition and illness, liberated U.S. prisoners of war are photographed in Bilibid by Navy photographers on 8 February 1945. Courtesy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Archives.

A Navy nurse pays her respects to the POWs who died and were buried inside the walls of Bilibid Prison, Manila, PI. Courtesy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Archives.

Cabanatuan, PI, 1942. Jim Neary, a West Pointer, stands in front of barracks beside a surface water well and garden, where okra, eggplant, and pigweed were grown and devoured by prisoners. National Archives (SC 265430). 

Cabanatuan, PI, 1942. Jim Neary, a West Pointer, stands in front of barracks beside a surface water well and garden, where okra, eggplant, and pigweed were grown and devoured by prisoners. National Archives (SC 265430). 

A photograph from the roof one of one of the barracks shows the proximity of buildings to one another within the Tsumori Prisoner of War Camp in Ōsaka, Japan. “Tsumori was a study in gray. Gray sea, gray sky, gray earth.” Photographer: Marone, September 1945. National Archives (SC-224918).

A sign posted by the commander of Tsumori Prisoner of War Camp in Ōsaka, Japan, setting forth camp regulations. Photographer: Marone, September 21, 1945. National Archives (SC-225183).

A latrine used by men at Tsumori Prisoner of War Camp, Ōsaka, Japan. The diarrhea sign was placed on the door by an American doctor but soon lost its significance because all of the men suffered from diarrhea. Photographer: Marone, September 21, 1945. National Archives (SC-225182).

Firefighting equipment supplied by the Japanese for use by POWs at Tsumori Prisoner of War Camp, Ōsaka, Japan. The straw brooms were dipped into buckets of water in an attempt to combat incendiary fires. Photographer: Marone, September 15, 1945. National Archives (SC-224916).

The medical staff of the Kōbe POW Hospital photographed in front of Ward No. 2, November 28, 1944. Author’s collection.

The Ōhashi family sittting for a formal photograph in Ōsaka, Japan. Front: Hyojiro (l.) and Yukako (r.). Rear (left to right) Yukako, Yasuko, and Hisamichi. Courtesy Ōhashi Yoshihisa.

A photograph of Miyazaki Shunya, who was treated for tuberculosis by Royal Navy surgeon, Lieutenant Commander John Allison Page, at the Kōbe POW Hospital in late 1945. During the bombing of Ōsaka, the Miyazaki family boarded the hashi family at their home in Nishinomiya. Courtesy Miyazaki Shunya.

American propaganda leaflets were dropped over Japanese cities to warn civilians of impending B-29 incendiary attacks. “Japanese Citizens!” read pamphlet No. 2047, entitled “The Living Hell After a Bombardment”: “From the safety of their splendid air-raid shelters, the military clique boldly urges you to resist. However, your air-raid shelters are nothing but the entryway to death….You can absolutely not escape. There is no place you can hide, and resistance only means terrifying death. Demand the cessation of this hopeless resistance, that is the only path to saving your country.” Courtesy Don Thurow. Translated for the author by John Junkerman.

The text of this graphic American propaganda leaflet, No. 2056, warning of an impending incendiary attack, reads in full:

"In cities dense with houses, bombs carry out brutal actions. American bombs are aimed at military and industrial targets, but because of their tremendous power, houses in the vicinity will also suffer their impact. Children witness the terrible deaths of their parents right before their eyes, mothers have their children taken from them, husbands and wives encounter everlasting sadness, and perhaps worst of all are cases of people suffering such pain that they envy the dead. In an instant people who were proud of their physical strength are crippled beyond recovery, become blind and lose their hearing, go crazy from nervous exhaustion. A mother who diligently cared for her husband and children becomes a burden, and funds for critical foodstuffs must be used for her medical care. Hardly any of the bombs dropped on crowded cities fail to cause tragic accidents. As long as Japan continues the war, the number of bombs dropped will increase more and more, so the only remedy for the cruelty of war is peace." Courtesy Don Thurow. Translated for the author by John Junkerman.

“I’m not afraid to fly in combat but on each mission I become more and more aware of the insipid foolishness of war,” wrote 2nd Lieutenant Robert E. Copeland, pilot of the B-29 Z [] 8, to his mother before the June 5, 1945 raid on Kōbe, Japan. He is pictured here with 2nd Lieutenant Robert E. “Bobby” Nelson. Courtesy William Copeland.

“Known as St. Bernard for coming to the aid of disabled planes, Z [] 8 of the 881st Squadron, 500th Bomb Group of the 73rd Bomb Wing had been flying alone at an altitude of 3,300 feet when it was caught in enemy tracers. In the pre-dawn darkness, a Tony rammed it from behind. There was a burst of light, a wing fluttered down, and two airmen bailed out before the Superfort went into free fall. The bodies of the other crewmen, said eyewitness Fukada Kaoru, looked as if they had dropped from the aircraft as it disintegrated in the sky.
Five airmen in the tail assembly of the plane were killed instantly. Four others were found below the Futatabi civilian internment camp. A Japanese flight boot was discovered in the debris belonging to ace fighter pilot Captain Ogata Jun’ichi of the Army’s 56th Sentai, one of the two main intercept groups in the Ōsaka-Kōbe area. The two survivors were Sergeant Algy S. Augunus [front row, fourth from left], who had a broken leg, and 2nd Lieutenant Robert W. Nelson [back row, center], a freckle-faced kid from Kansas who walked with such a proud military bearing that it looked, said his friend Ed Keyser, as if his back was in a brace. The body of the twenty-year old pilot, 2nd Lieutenant Robert E. Copeland [back row, 2nd from left], lay near the point of impact. The letter he wrote to his mother remained unsent among his belongings on Saipan.” Courtesy William Copeland.

A strike photograph of the June 4-5, 1945 B-29 raid on Kōbe, Japan. National Archives (AC 57687). 

The remains of Kōbe after three American B-29 raids. “‘I couldn’t tell where we were,” Murray said, ‘because everything was burned down.’ Kōbe was a wasteland. When he gazed at it from the slopes of the Rokkō Mountains, he saw a city of the dead.” National Archives (AC 58995).

Allied POWs cheer wildly as U.S. Navy landing craft approach Ōmori Main Camp in Tōkyō Bay, August 1945. Courtesy National Archives.

The Japanese delegation aboard the USS Missouri in Tōkyō Bay, Japan, for the signing of the surrender, September 2, 1945. To Kase Toshikazu, a member of the Foreign Office educated at Amherst and Harvard, it was “the torture of the pillory.” Photograph: Lt. C.F. Wheeler. National Archives (SC 348365).

General Douglas MacArthur signing the surrender treaty aboard the USS Missouri in Tōkyō Bay, Japan, September 2, 1945, flanked by Lieutenant General Jonathan M. “Skinny Wainwright, and Lieutenant General Arthur E. Percival, the British commander when Singapore fell to the Japanese. Behind them was a phalanx of Allied admirals and generals in khaki against the backdrop of the greatest armada in the world. Photograph: Lt. C.F. Wheeler. National Archives (SC-348366) 

Recovered American Military Personnel (RAMPS) emerging from Yokohama Railroad Station with an honor guard flanking them on both sides, September 16, 1945. They are the last ex-Prisoners of War who arrived from Ōsaka Prison Camp where they voluntarily effected an orderly evacuation. National Archives (SC 215252).