Transcripts For CSPAN3 World War II U.S. Army Signal Corps Photos 20240713

Weekend on cspan three. Next, a panel of photo historians looks at the u. S. Army signal corps with a focus on images captured by photographers. The National Archives and the u. S. Army center of history covers to this event. The Army Signal Corps photographic collection is one of the largest in the branch. Roughly one million images covering world war i through 1981 ronald a military activities during war and on the home front. As we will examine tonight, the aftermath of war. In this tribute, we remember and honor the soldier photographers who, through their images, or a witness of postwar destruction. Welcome the Strategic Communications officer for the u. S. Army center of military history. He retired from the army reserve and 2017. He had the rank of colonel and 35 years of military service. He deployed three times and commanded the American Forces network in a rock and baghdad plus direct Media Operations and assisted spokesman for commissions at guantanamo bay, cuba and was the chief of Media Operations and a senior spokesman for detention operations at guantanamo. He was also an assistant professor of military sinus science at usc. [applause] good evening and thank you. My name is lee reynolds. It i am a strategic medications officer for the u. S. Army center of military history. The center is responsible for recording, the official history of the u. S. Army in peace and war and also informing the army staff. Our core responsibilities are to educate the public and the force, to inspire young men and women to serve, and to preserve our army heritage. I invite you to visit our website at history. Army. Mil to learn more about our coresponsibilities and mission. And to find out about the publications that we produce and about the museums that we manage thend the world including new Natural Museum in the u. S. Army that opens in just seven months in 2020. I think you will be excited as we are. Again that is june 4, 2020. We are proud and honored to support the 75th commemoration of world war ii with Tonights Panel presentation. This evening, we are honoring the world war ii soldier photographers from the armys signal corps collection here at the National Archives. These signal corps photo teams carrying what was then stateoftheart equipment would go out into combat operations often by themselves and cover where civilian journalists either would not go or could not go. The results as you will see her tonight captured on film through their lenses some of the most iconic pictures of world war ii. These images were not just used by the u. S. Army, they could be seen in newspapers and films throughout the world. At the end of tonights presentation, we will have 20 minutes for questions and answers. There is a gentleman on the side and i will be on the other side and we will have index cards. If you have a question, please write it down and pass it to the side. Just signal us if you need a pencil. Or an index card. At this time, i would like to bring to the stage our panel members. [applause] our first is a digital historian for the center for digital history and a principal vietnam war historian. He is also the author of a recent book about vietnam called staying the course october 1967 to september 1968. May vietnamard, i war historian but as the digital historian, one of my other jobs is to research and produce a pair of commemorative websites for the u. S. Army in world war ii. You can find that on our website. History. Army. Mil. One of the things that i found most valuable is looking through the signal corps photographic collection. They provide such a rich source soinformation and tell us much about the experience of a soldier in the war that we cannot get anywhere else. I am pleased tonight to be moderating a panel of experts who will tell us more about this incredible part of army history in the Second World War that isnt well known but it should be. I will introduce our panel members. We haven the far right a former picture editor for the chicago suntimes and the author books ons than 24 history and photography. Many of them on chicago. Some more recent books that widen the aperture. For your most recent book which is after shot which is available in our lobby and Available Online. Coauthor marc jacobs who was a former editor for the chicago tribune. In his own right, author of eight books on history and photography. We have a powerhouse team. The third author is not here tonight but i will mention him. Michael williams has worked with us in many occasion. We actually have a treo of examinationd this of signal corps photographers. Her third panelist is rebecca raines. She is a long serving historian. In 2000, as she and her husband were there and have been dear friends, she was the Branch Historian and wrote the official history of the signal corps branch getting the message through. We are so glad to have your expertise here. Our final panelist is caitlin who is an archive specialist at the College Park Branch of the National Archives. In the Still Picture Branch and an expert in world war ii photography and knows quite a lot about how the collection was organized. I am very envious because she can rummage through those the dust files anytime she feels like it. To start, i would like to hand off to richard and mark to tell us about the journey of how they came about writing and producing the book aftershock. First off, i should tell you that i dont think i am as much as an expert as he said as a photo lover. People call me a photo historian. I didnt know that existed until i heard it. I like to tell stories through photographs because i think the photographs take is instantly so we canet is up understand life events better. This book, aftershock, we started three years ago. We wanted to do a book about world war ii. There is an incredible collection of books about world war ii and so we wanted to toure out a way i promised turn off my cell phone and i want to keep that promise. Are you in trouble . Yes. We started about three years ago and decided to concentrate on 1945. The reason we chose signal corps in the army was the army was on all continents across the world during world war ii and they were on the ground in world war ii. Even though the navy and marines and coast guard had great photographs, we thought there was a continuity among army photographs and signal corps photographs. We concentrated on 1945 because many of the still photos and films of the photographers took of 43 and 44, the action photos we are all aware of, they have been shown in a lot of books and somehow when 1945 came around, theres not as much attention to the book. Frankly, it is an antiwar book. Somebody i recently interviewed on the radio, they said i would be classified as liberal because thattiwar and i decided conservatives, the military, everyone who has a heart and a conscience is against the war so i dont think this is radical in the least. I want to tell you about our journey. Who is a book about men went to war with cameras instead of guns. The truth of it was that they were provided sidearms as every photographer said, theres no way to shoot pictures and shoot guns at the same time and they all chose cameras which is pretty remarkable. Most of these men were not experienced photographers. Some were along the line as they were being enlisted or as they were filing papers, they made the mistake of saying they were interested in photography. [laughter] they went through months of training to become photographers along with becoming soldiers. It was the guns so they took that was courageous. I believe that they left an incredible gift to future generations. And our generations right now by the photographs they took of the war. They teach us and the subtitle of the book is the humid toll of war, they teach us exactly that. I think thats whether photographs are important. You will witness a couple of merkels tonight. The miracle they took the photographs, the miracle that the photographs were saved so well in the National Archive and so available and the miracle that now we as a future generation appreciate them and see its importance. These are photographs of two of the photographers. I should say that the man on the left, they are holding Speed Graphic cameras and those with a common cameras that prepped like you see in films, thats the kind of camera they held. The man on the left is holding a flash unit. They didnt use flash but not very often. You can imagine they did not do it during battle. Thatimportant to recognize these incredible photographs were made with very primitive cameras that used four inch by five inch negatives and they could only put in to negatives at a time than they would have to switch to another magazine. Very different from photography today. Another miracle, they were all processed. Almost always very neil very near the battlefield a few miles from the front lines. The film was then sent to london later in the war, to paris than they were radio transmitted back to the united states. They were used in a variety of reasons. Sometimes strategic. Sometimes for magazines and newspapers. They were a very important part of the war effort. If you got a chance to see the , what makes this book so oncial, and had a focus 1945. The last photograph was taken the last days of december. Every picture shows, basically the book shows what the world looked like as the war came to an end and as peace came. What makes this book so unusual is the clarity of the photographs. If you have seen the book, you will see. We were given a chance by the National Archives to scan the original negatives, put it on a scanner to create the book. We were allowed to do 10 scans per day. Thats the rule of the National Archives. We were there for a week so we did 100 because they counted. They let us do 20 because we had to people. Mcconnell came to the archives mustve been for several months and did a beautiful job scanning 10 pictures per day. Here is a fourinch by five inch negative. You will see what it looks like as a positive. This is an execution of a german general. December 1945. It was one of the harder negatives because everything is so backlit. This is the way it looks in the book. We not only showed the imagery of the negatives, we always showed the edge of the negative because we think these photographs are important and evidence. We wanted to show the entire negative. Oftentimes, you will see on the edge, the signal corps numbers and those are the numbers that the National Archive still uses to find these photographs. How did we pick the photographs . Betweenguess there are 100000 and 200,000 negatives from 1945. We used contact sheets at first to look at what was there. This is an example worried a contact print is a print that is exactly four inches by five inches same as the negative and it is taking the negatives and putting light through them and making a print the same size. That helped us tremendously. We got to the front side and the backside of the contact prints. That gave us a sense of what pictures without we should use for the book. We had two roles. We were looking for starkly important xers and artistically important pictures. The book is rough. We wanted to show humid toll of war but we also look for humanity. Im sorry these are the files to contact prints are in. It was in a bit of a challenge because the world war ii photographs are combined with the korean war photographs. You have to go through a lot of looking. Then, we looked at a by 10 prints to get a better idea of what the photographs looked like. You can see the difference even in this picture of a print and a scan from a negative. What we are seeing in this book are many images that have never been seen before. Have beennes that published, they have never been seen like this because they have always been seen for prints. As great as enlarged images are, they cannot stand up to scanners. Negatives, which are filled with information and scanners of each other. 1945is really a book of and of 2019. I dont want to go back lets try. At least we got it moving. Next way we started looking for pictures is we started to find subject areas. Not only prints of them but you can look at pictures through metadata and these are pictures of bridal couples. We were looking for humanity to include in the book and that led us to pictures like this which is a remarkable picture from the philippines. This is a japanese soldier and a woman and they were hiding out after battle and when they were captured, professed their love for each other so this is an american chaplain marrying a japanese prisoner and a japanese woman and you can see the soldier in the back link the accordion. We were always on the lookout for that. Next, we started to tell the story of the signal graphic companies. We left still photos and we went to the main text aria and we looked up the seven companies, everything they had. Large earning curve. I think i got everything wrong on this west. Even changed my name. But it was every location and it talks about how helpful the National Archives was. I should mention that the scanner and the negatives are open to anybody. Anyone who walks in and get 10 photographs per day. These are some of the items that we found in the text. We found yearbooks, we found morning reports, we found newspapers, it was incredibly helpful in telling story of the men who were the signal corps photographers. We started with the photograph and we went after them and to photographs. That became an important project. There were about 70 photographers who took 300 pictures in the book. We checked down the story of almost every one of the photographers. Everyone had passed away. There is are still a couple of signal corps photographers alive later,gine, 75 years there were generally between 20 and 25 when they got overseas so they are at least 95 years old. We talked to their families and i cant tell you how proud they are of their parents as they went to her with such courage and left record. This is our cover photo. We think it goes great with the title of aftershock because this is a pennsylvania kid who was an infantry soldier. He was captured in the battle of the bulge. He was captured, taken back to germany to work slave labor, after about one month escaped with a comrade and hid in a house in germany and a german officer came in and william killed him to remain free. Then he hid in a free seller. The allies found him there and this is him right after that. He is wearing the cap of the german officer killed. He has a house and yard stare. Like hed been through with the world through for years. He was clearly emblematic of the point where trying to make. We tracked down someone who shared a 19 page memoir that they had written and we used that in the book. Running these pictures, gets to be pretty clear that signal corps photographers and these pictures were on the run a lot. The captions were terrible sometimes. Theres plenty of death and destruction in the book but we wanted to give readers a real tose of what it was like come to terms of how terrible war in then. 314yearold three 14yearold german kids who were enlisted in the military. We love this picture, the baby faces. Also, the kid on the right he must have an issue that overcoat recently because he has that and on the wrong button. Hurry and they were captured quickly. This is one of my favorite pictures. It shows a man who is missing a limb demonstrating how to write a bike ride a bike for gis who had their limbs amputated during the war. This is the german city and i hope you can see, there is a single american g. I. Walking through this devastated city. The extent of the devastation of some of the cities in asia, from the philippines and all over the place is amazing. Im not sure why he did that. Scanning these negatives really made a difference and pictures like this because you see so much definition. The odd thing is, when we were working on the book, we would say thats a beautiful picture. Some pictures really are beautiful. It was odd because these are pastors of ugliness. But they were so beautifully taken by these soldier photographers. These are troops who have been wounded in some way. They are being loaded into a Landing Craft from an aircraft carrier. In the book, youll see quite a few pictures of injured soldiers but also a lot of pictures of civilians. One of the things that really defined world war ii was the extent to which civilians were killed as opposed to soldiers. According to one estimate, it was three to one civilians to soldiers. Thats the thing about total war. We want to make the point that nobody is spared. This is one of the most devastating scenes. This is an manila, philippines. Is one with the crutches of the 30 japanese soldiers who surrendered. The rest of them did not surrender they fought to the death. The fighting in the old city of the philippines was some of the toughest of the pacific war. I love this picture. These are chinese who have returned to the philippines to collect the skulls and bones, the remains of their loved ones. The remains are from the entire chinese diplomatic corps that was in the philippines when a japanese invaded. The japanese invaded, the americans left, macarthur and most of the americans left. There were some holdouts. Macarthur volunteered to take the chinese diplomats with him. They said no we have to stay there are a hundred thousand chinese on the philippines islands we have to protect them. They demanded that the consular staff collect a gigantic amount on they from the chinese island. If the diplomats refused, they were marched to a cemetery and unit. Ther families stayed in philippines for the entire war without knowing the fate of their loved ones. They didnt find that out for sure until the americans recaptured the philippines. Down theble to track doddle daughter of the consul general. She is living in new york city now. She became an american citizen and had a career in publishing. Down, itracked her asked her i said have you seen this picture before . She said no she had never seen it. Your fathers remains there . She said i presume so. Her mother was not in this picture because they had already left the united states. She said i can identify everyone in that picture. When youre a historian doing a book and trying to track down facts from 75 years ago, its amazing when you find someone who was there. We treasured that. Of the pictures in the book show american bravery. This shows an interesting chapter in the war. This is a place after it was liberated. The americans came in and liberated this camp where so many cruelties have taken place. Toughest duties for the soldier photographers was taking pictures of death camps. They get there and they see the depravity and have the human beings have been treated and the gis were furious and they were rounded up all of the ss guards against a wall and they put a machine gun up there and as they put the first round in, the german soldiers broke they started running at them. The american troops opened up and shot more than a dozen of them. In what some people might view as a massacre. No one was disciplined over it. Again, not the kind of picture youre going to see in 1945 and an american publication. Book ishe values of the how it takes the 2019 view of how things happened in 1945 and if its not a propaganda book its a truth book. For both good and bad and theres plenty of both. This is a very interesting picture. This is a soviet slave labor was pointing out the guard who is the most cruel in the area that he was in. It was taken by a photographer named harold roberts. Everyone loved this picture but he took this picture with a Speed Graphic camera, and those cameras only had two negatives you could load at any one time. He takes the picture, gets ready to reload, and the prisoner punches the guard in the face. Harold roberts is always upset he missed that picture, he thought it would have been even greater than the picture he took. This is emily mary lakeman, one of the archives poster women. This is a photograph of her taken after she was involved in the longest death march and the war, a group of mostly jewish women were marched hundreds of miles over six months. They ended up in a tiny barn in voll ra volare, czechoslovakia. They were liberated in the barn. A signal corps photographer took her picture days after she was found and he asked the women, does anyone have a photograph of themselves before the holocaust, so we can compare the two photographs . She happened to have a photograph of herself that she had carried in her shoe. That is her on the right as a teenager read so she gave the photograph to the Army Photographer to make a print and a copy. Somehow the photographer was lost the, and she single photograph that she had of her youth. 1995, sheard to about returns to the archives as mary robinson, she has gotten married, and her husband joins and they find both photographs before they returned to volare for a 50th anniversary celebration. So if you go down into the basement of the college park National Archives, her story is told. But there is a twist. Father was the doctor who helped them. These women weighed about 75 pounds, and it would have made food, butive them that was a disaster. One soldier slipped one of the women a small chocolate wafer, and she died on most immediately. Her body couldnt take it. And my father helped them come back. And i knew the story about my father, but i had no idea that there was a photograph of my father. The reason why i couldnt find the photograph is because they spelled his name wrong. Cahan, was aaron not aaron cohan. That was a real personal connection for me to this whole collection. Story because the told myo he helped, mother about my fathers work. When they returned to czechoslovakia, they said captain k hand captain cahan was our hero. Good evening. It is nice to see you all here. Im very happy to be part of the panel tonight, with these authors of this fascinating book. Thank you for asking me to be part of this panel. It gives me a chance to talk about the Army Signal Corps, one of my favorite topics, about its background dentistry and world war ii. When the signal corps was founded in corps on the eve of the civil war, it was given a broad mandate to provide notunications for the army, defined more specifically than that, and all the equipment that went with it. Missione, the encompassed a wide variety of functions, which is one of the things that makes the signal corps interesting to study. Photography would eventually been would eventually be included in the signal corps purview, but that didnt happen for a few years. During the save voll during the civil war, the army had no photographers. Hunting photographs were captured by civilian, Matthew Brady. Photographs were captured by a civilian, Matthew Brady. But the photographic process was more cumbersome even than world war ii. The cameras they used had glass plates that were very fragile, and they needed such a Long Exposure time that there was no way you could capture action. Take the development of smaller cameras, and the invention of rolled film, which didnt happen until the 1890s, to make combat photography feasible. Meanwhile, the signal corps did perform photographic work in the 0s, when it took on sucks took on such jobs as photographic maps in the records of the civil war that were being compiled by the photo by the War Department. Became, the signal corps responsible for supervising the War Department library, which included the brady photos at that time. Because he had fallen on Financial Difficulties later in life, he had to sell his collection, and the War Department had purchased it. 1890s, the signal corps gets a little more involved in photography even though it is not officially a part of their job. In 1894 the signal corps added signal corpso the located at fort riley, kansas. Published a manual on photography to use to teach the soldiers. Function stillc wasnt officially design officially assigned and wouldnt be for quite a while. The war in spain and 8 the war with spain in 1898 of the army with its first opportunity to try its hand photography. The signal soldiers took cameras into the war zones and captured the fighting in cuba, puerto rico and the philippines but the real comingofage for signal corps photography came during world war i. The signal corps established the photographic section that had responsible for ground and Aerial Photography at home and abroad. And aviation was one of those additional functions the signal corps had for a time during world war i. Signal corps cameramen took images,d Motion Picture but officers were reluctant to allow cameramen to close to the front, so theyd took a few photos of actual combat. Nosorship was strict, and graphic images were shown to the public at all. Nevertheless, by the wars end, the signal corps had a cumulate had accumulated 750,000 Motion Picture films used for training, propaganda and other purposes. The all this material, signal corps needed specialized facilities. Corps builtsignal the Photographic Laboratory and film vault on the grounds of the now known asege, fort Leslie J Mcnair in southwest washington dc, the post where the u. S. Army center of military history is now located. What goes around comes around. The outbreak of world war ii created a huge demand for army photography, and required the signal corps to up its operations. The War Department finally issued regulations that give responsibility to the signal corps for all photographic work, except that specifically assigned to other branches, so a broad authority. The emphasis was on combat photography, and cameramen served at the front lines. To administer this wartime buildup, the Photographic Division was in the office of the chief signal officer, and became the Army Pictorial Service in june 1942. We have a picture of that office, i believe, after dday inapril 1942, and another august 1941 that is a little bit smaller. One notable thing is how many women were working in the office at that time, because the draft had happened, the men were serving, and they picked up the duties. Another thing about this office is that it was located in what was then known as the munitions building located on the mall, about where the Smithsonian National History Museum is today. The War Department head headquarters there until the pentagon was completed, and the chief signal officer had his office there. Earlier the signal corps purchased the former paramount studios at astoria, long island, which became the signal corps center, and after undergoing renovations it opened in may 1942. The center provided a modern facility for training, film production, processing, and distribution to be consolidated, leaving the laboratory in Washington Free to focus on still pictures. While the army tried to draft professional photographers, there werent enough. So to meet the demand, the signal corps conducted photographic training at astoria for both still and Motion Picture cameramen. In new york city, they were receiving instruction from press photographers in new york. That is were thing was based, and they could show these men how to take newsworthy photos, which isnt always the easiest thing to do. The center also trained many specialists required for photographic work, such as camera repair men and maintenance personnel, as well as lab technicians. Army augmented its facilities at the war college by opening a still picture laboratory at the newlycompleted paramount. The following year the signal corps consolidated all its still picture Laboratory Operations there. The pentagon also housed the signal corps still picture library, with the Motion Picture counterpart located at astoria. By the end of the war, the still picture library held over 500,000 photos, and those are just the ones they considered worthy of keeping. Many were destroyed. These men working in the offices and the laboratories, members of the Womens Army Corps worked in many film laboratories and libraries run by the signal corps. The photographs brought the distant war home to americans in a way that had never been done before. The signal corps photographic companies documented Field Operations around the world, and they accompanied troops on various assignments, amphibious landings and whatever. And they usually operated in small groups, so they could be in more places at once. Showing theto here equipment these signal corps cameramen used. It is a lot better than what , carryingady had around, but it is still pretty bulky and hard to move around with. They also mentioned they couldnt carry a rifle with all this stuff, so all they had to defend themselves was a pistol and a knife. So they were pretty vulnerable out there. See blackandwhite photography was the norm for combat coverage, but army cameramen did use color to a limited extent. They had portable dark rooms that they could process still pictures quickly in the field to use for tactical purposes, to show enemy emplacement and things of that nature. The development of telephoto techniques as technology kept improving enabled electronic transmission photographs, so pictures could reach washington from the front in minutes. Pictures taken by Army Photographers illustrated the nations books, newspapers and magazines, and the caption, photo by u. S. Army signal corps, became almost as well notion as commercial trademarks. Lucky for us, the army insisted photographers include detailed captions with their photographs, and they did provide at least part of the time the who, what, when and where of who and what they were taking pictures of. The government still placed restrictions on the kinds of images that could be shown, although not as heavily as world war i. Many pictures in the book i was looking at before i came out would not have been seen by the public during the war, but it still received a much more realistic look at warfare than they ever had before. Besides capturing combat action, photography served other purposes. One of the most important and male, by whichs personal correspondence and letters soldiers were riding back home was microfilmed to save cargo space on ships and airplanes. At the receiving end, the film was developed, enlarged, printed into four and a half by five inch reproductions that were then mailed to the address the the addressee. They called an official photo mail. Also developeds unofficial photos soldiers took sent to them as necessary. For all its accompaniment, the Army Pictorial Service did face criticism. In august 1942 it came under scrutiny by the Senate Special Committee Investigating the National Defense program, which was chaired by senator harry truman. The controversy centered around signal corps Motion Picture activities and their ties with much stillnot so picture operations. But for short time the Army Pictorial Service was moved from signal corps control, but it reverted back after the committee concluded its hearings in july 1943. Despite the admin straight of a people, the Army Pictorial Service continued to function effectively. This picture shows you the kind of conditions they were dealing with. Cameramen did traveling jeeps to get around the battlefield, but it wasnt always easy to reach where they were going. One of the things you dont see many pictures of our cameramen themselves, and there were many wounded. They were vulnerable when they were taking the pictures, kind of sitting ducks for the enemy to shoot. This is one of those cameramen who suffered injury. In the closing days of the war, a signal corps photograph of the big three World Leaders at the potsdam conference became one of the First Published news photos transmitted by radio for reproduction in fullcolor. I dont have a picture of that tonight. It is but one of the many memorable images captured by the photographers of the Army Pictorial Service during world war ii, and those men risked their lives and many gave their epic, visualate an record of the cataclysmic, worldwide conflict. They left behind a remarkable legacy that has stood the test have seens we tonight. That legacy still speaks to us today. [applause] moderator i get the privilege of working with the Army Signal Corps collection. It is our largest collection. And it is the most used collection. I dont think there is a signal bay i have been at work that it hasnt been requested. And in preparation tonight, i went through the paperwork that of theted that transfer photographs to a speed yes, we keep records about records. So the Army Signal Corps photographs were transferred to us in four different chunks. We call them sessions. They came over in four different years. But in rating the in reading the paper work, there was an interesting quote. They were praising the worth of is documents, and the worth not just the value monetarily, but the historic value and research value. And they wrote, this material is a part of the oldest, continuing its photographic file in the history of the government, and the bestknown file because of its coverage of the military operations of the united states. Therefore the importance of the records need not be stressed. I believe we have over 18 million photographs and this is the oldest and largest collection. So in my role at the National Archives, i work with in,archers that come experienced and novice researchers. I help you locate what you are trying to find. Doesnt mean we will find it, but i point you in the right direction. When you come in, you are the expert on your subject, and im just the person who uses the information you give me to help you find the photos you are looking for. I always like to start with setting expectations, and things that you dont find in the signal corps collection, or in a lot of our military records. We dont have a photo of every Single Person who has served in the military. If you are looking for your relatives, there may be a photo of them, but it doesnt mean their name is captioned, and therefore i wont be able to identify your relative. We dont have unit photos. We have unit photos, sometimes captured at basis, but we dont have those platoon photos end unit photos taken at boot camp. Takene portraits that are at boot camp or graduations, we dont really have either. The signal corps was very detailed, they kept great records of their records, so we have those with a name that appears in the caption. Hypothetically, it should be in the same index. The photographs are not organized by date, so it is incredibly impressive that you have found 1945 photos, because those skip around. You can look in a box and see all of world war ii in one box. It is not in chronological order. Im not entirely certain how the numbers were assigned. Sometimes we have people coming in with a photo that they have, and they want to find the original because they want to scan the negative, because but they dont have the scanned the negative, but they dont have the signal corps number, so we work with them to go through the indexes and attempt to find the signal corps number. On some photographs there are two numbers, seal number and a signal corps number. We have no way of getting from that seal number to the signal corps number, so it is a lot of working with the subject in the image in order to locate it. Images, they are taking some color photography, i believe in early 1945, the end of 1944. Most of our color photography for world war ii is in 1944 and 1945. There is some from 1941, but the k of our collection this is pearl harbor, december 7. This may be one of the earliest color photos we have found, but i have not gone through all one million photographs. [laughter] i i work with the public and field questions. More always say, you are of an expert on the subject of world war ii, but if you want me to help you find an image, i can do that. You should come prepared if you want to do research, specifically on world war ii units, but this could be used for korean war and vietnam era. If you are looking for a specific unit, having the unit lineage helps, because you can look under the iraqi of it, a specific regiment, you might want to know what division they were attached to. That is very useful. Locations where they served, you can look under geographic locations, and having specific towns helps a lot. Rosters, so you can look under names, especially commanding officers. That is really, really useful. And then subjects, subtypes of you cany that used, look under various subjects. So i always say, always come prepared. Because i can do some limited research with you, but if you have all that information, i can show you way more places to look instead of if you just have one name and thats it. Your research day is done. Corps, wef the signal have three copies of the signal corps print or photograph. There is a four by five negative, eight by 10 prints, and four by five contact prints. We do pull original negatives, and we will pull 10 a day. We limit it because they are the original copy and we dont want to serve too many at one time. That there are also these drawers, so we are pulling them individually out of the drawers, and there is room for error when you put them back, and we want to make sure they get back and correct locations, because things have been misfiled, and found decades later. [laughter] yes, that is basically what i do as a researcher, on a daily basis. [applause] let me say a few things in addition to the great comments we have heard here. There are three things i want to add, they have been touched on, but i want to reinforce them. The Army Signal Corps photo collection is one of the Great National treasures. Historians dont give photographs their proper due. I think there is a wealth of information. I personally learned so much by spending so much time with the photographs. I love text, no problem with text, but there is just something about the images and the information they contained. The second point i want to reinforce that there is information in those photographs you are not likely to find anywhere else, or not obtain in the same way or with the same force. For example, looking at the world war ii signal corps photos , and i go to the archives and have a different system. I dont have the luxury of pulling the negatives, so i andd there with an iphone, do my photoshop fairy dust and take out the scratches, put them on our website and social media. But the process of actually fixing them up is important, because i look really closely at them. You are finding stuff that you would just pass over. Variations in equipment, particularly 1945, the american soldier in 1945, that is a raggedy ann character, it is not the put away, straightened out soldier. Iny are trying to survive conditions that are unspeakable. You see them wearing German Air Force jackets, with the fleece inside, or they have got some kind of nonstandard boot, or they have three k bar knives strapped to various parts of their bodies. And unless you look at these photos, you would not know that. One of my favorite thing our tankers, what the tankers were doing to uparmor their vehicles. The sermons were facing panthers and tigers, so they are loaded with sandbags, railroad ties, all this other stuff. So the way that they do it, you can only appreciate that by seeing it. The third point and probably the most important, every Single Person in those photos is daughter orson or an uncle or a father or a and so many of the relatives of those people are still with us. And i know this, because when i put this all on social media, within the last two weeks, two people in their early 20s contacted me going, that is my grandfather. So it is wonderful to know that there is a continuity, that people do understand this. So keeping this photographic collection alive and making it available is really one of the best ways to honor our veterans. And that is what tonight is about. Before we go to question and , i would like to show you a fiveminute video i produced using some of the photos i have scanned and and hands, anded and enhanced segments to a musical accompanying a musical accompaniment which i felt somehow suited the images. So if you will stop for a few minutes and think about the contributions of the Army Signal Corps photographers, this is my tribute to them. [video presentation begins] [applause] at this time we will start with questions and answers. Feel free to raise your hand, and people on the left or right will pass you pencils and cards per the first question is, will you accept negatives or photos from the korean war into your collection . Do. Lyn we our Army Signal Corps collection starts with civil war Matthew Brady photography and goes believe 1982. After that, it is under the department of the defense. Department of defense records go 1982 toouch 2007 2007. Were the most interesting things you discovered from going through all these pictures what were the most interesting things you discovered from going throughout these pictures . I discovered the war was so expensive. We live in a generation that, wars are very limited, and unless you are fighting, unless au have a loved one fighting, war is not as brutal as world war ii, or a major world war was. We showed the photographs in chronological order, and they bounce around, pictures from europe, than the next picture might be of burma, the philippines, might be china, the italy china, italy, the middle east. I read about the extent of world war, but i think i was surprised how huge it was. For me, it would have been the impact on civilians. Much int see that too the history books. You see a lot of the combatants and the giant armies fighting each other, but the looks on the faces of the civilians, and the aftershock, every time i go through it again and look at it, they look so forlorn, they just look shellshocked, like they dont know what can happen next. And they are not hopeful. Atfor me, having looked probably all 55,000 world war i war,s, as well as vietnam doing a comparison, one thing that stands out to me for the world war ii photos is that seemed to be the golden age of , you know, a couple of those images at the end, the portraits. The photographer is there and the person knows he is looking at them, so it is not just capturing them in the moment, but there is a realness and a beauty to those images that i just dont see anywhere else. Are soldierhese photographers, most of home never received training before, working with those incredibly cumbersome cameras under incredibly difficult conditions. I read all these daily journals that say, bob is covered with fungus from head to toe, but otherwise we are doing great read this is the kind of stuff they have to go through to get the shot. And you have to come up with that quality. Just theraordinary, so personalities that come out of these photos are really remarkable. Thing,curious about one because we concentrated on 1945. And im amazed by the quality of the compositions, because most of these people were not professional photographers. Rich and i worked with professional photographers our whole lives, and some of the compositions are so good. Did they get better as the war went on . Fair to say. At is it is fair to say they did. It is also fair to say they took on. Photos as time went a fairlyhere were limited number of photographic units out there, and of course the number expands. So partly it is the sheer number , but maybe it was the heir or the water, but they rose to the occasion. By 1944, absolutely, some photos that would stand right up there with anything england has produced. And it is interesting, after the war and we tracked down families and found out what they did, how few of them stayed in photography. One became a very famous celebrity photographer. Meyer, ar became russ movie photographer. [laughter] but most of them left to become journalists or printers or something allied with photography, and i think it is because they had seen it all. What was there now to prove, after world war ii . What was there to photograph . I think they wanted to start a new and start fresh. And one can also imagine just the horrors that they had seen. And sometimes, one thing i really appreciate is those photographers who went the extra mile to write more on the caption sheets. In the movie i showed you, toward the end, the american tanker in the tour it with the machine gun, the black tanker, there were five photos, and Army Signal Corps photographer met up with this unit, the 761st tank battalion, pattons black panthers, the First Black Army unit in combat, right before the First Combat Mission in november 1944, and happens to take photos of all five crewmembers, including that person. In 12 hours, they are all dead. They go into action, they buttoned up, which means they close up the vehicle, because exhaust action, and the system gets partly blocked, so they all died of carbon monoxide. So they are found in their fighting positions without a scratch on them. It just kind of blows your mind, these incredible photographs. And who knew that 12 hours later . Get the back story of some of these things, it just adds another layer. You mentioned the book focused on 1945, and the question here is, how did you decide on this topic . What sparked your interest . Why world war ii . Ik showed a picture of a soldier with a cigarette hanging, near the end, and that is how it all started. We found that the photograph was so beautiful, and wanted to photos wanted to focus on the end of the war. And you talk about every generation that has their own war, because we forgot how bad, how terrible war is, and we created the book because we wanted to create this lasting record, not that we were creating a lasting record, but the photographers were creating a lasting record. And we help people look at the book and realize how serious any war, doesnt have to be a total is the gift they left behind. And 1945 is not just when world war ii ended, it is when , andtomic age dawned there is so much happening. There is a picture in the book of jewish refugees getting ready to go to palestine. A picture of the vietnamese protesters wanting to have independence for vietnam after world war ii, which they couldnt get, if you remember. The french went back and reoccupied, and later the americans were involved in the vietnam war. So the book is about the end of something and also about the daw n of something. Napalm, the use of first atomic bomb blast, so it is very contemporary. The question here is, any africanamerican photographers in world war ii . And work any photographers assigned to companies such as the four 42nd, the asian and japaneseamerican unit. There were really good pictures of the four 42nd, but they are not my book because it happened in 1944 when they saw their best action. To anr got any connection africanamerican photographer. There was a japanese photographer, japaneseamerican photographer who later became lbjs photographer. But he started in the middle of 1945, but a great question. I cant speak to that, because i went out to find, among other topics, and indeed i found a number of photos. The 92nd Infantry Division was an africanamerican division that saw action in italy. And the 93rd saw action in the pacific. The 93rd included such famous black regiments as the 24th and 25th and the three hunter its xd9s, which had been the Harlem Health fighters in world war i. Llfighters in world war i. But unless you dug into the archives, you wouldnt know. I went into records and found after action reports from the 93rd. It is a fascinating record, and photos there as well. Yes, they are there, and that is a part of the treasure hunt, looking, and every time i go it is a treat, because i almost inevitably stumble on something that i hadnt been looking for, which is cool. 442nd, andt and the the 100th Infantry Battalion from hawaii, there are photos of them and they are there. Do you know how many combat photographers there were . And you know how many were killed in action, wounded or missing . And is there any postwar associations that were formed for these photographers . Had a great deal of problems figuring out how many photographers until many casualties. We estimate it was in the hundreds, not in the thousands, but i am guessing 500. We counted 24 casualties, but there must have been much more, because they were on the front lines. So statistically that should have much more than a couple of dozen, but we could only anecdotally find 24. A book called armed with cameras about signal corps photographers features the and thephic companies, numbers are always difficult to nail down. That is kind of how this came about. I was looking for someone to i met him my friend, at some of the history conferences, just a fantastic guy, he had written about the vietnam, and i had no idea he wrote about this, so i talked to him, he is fishing, so these other guys that i know. Just a plug for the textual branch, there is a massive history of the Army Signal Corps in world war ii written during and after the war. It is on the second floor, that has a lot of that statistical information. It,courage you to read because i dont have it on me. [laughter] is there any interest or effort to digitally enhance any of these photos, digitize them and make them Available Online . I guess the question is for me. But inbeen talked about, terms of how you decide what is going to get digitized, we have over 18 million photographs. You tend to choose stuff that is on glass. The entirety of the Matthew Brady stuff is digitized. So glass plates and slides get prioritized. The cost of digitize asian is enormous, it is not as simple as just scanning and throwing it up. It takes manpowers, those captions need a lot of editing not adding not editing, just proofreading, and it is a lot of work. In terms of negatives and prints, ideally you want to digitize from the negative, but sometimes there are negatives missing that were not transferred to us. So you have to go track down a print, so it is not just a one for one, there is a big gap in the negative, so you need to go to the print. It is a lot of work. A question here about german photos. Were any german photos captured, and are they in the collection . We have a large collection of captured records. Seized records. A lot of it is heinrich hoffman, hitlerss personal photographer. We also have eva brauns photo albums. We have not digitized those. There is a translation issue. We need to german speaker to there have not been many formats, glass plates, 35mm, it is an enormous collection. I dont think anyone has ever gone through all of it. Speaking of germany, an interesting story. Signal corps photographers wrote captions and always included their names in the captions, but they were never ever credited with the photographs in america. Life magazine would run it and it would always say, signal corps photography. One photographer put his pigeon carried his negatives. It was supposed to go to london but ended up in germany. And the germans published the photograph, and gave the photographer his name credit. [laughter] the College Park Campus is the signal corps Photo Archive located, which building . A2 is in college park next to the university of maryland. We are on the fifth floor, cant miss it, it is the only door to walk into. The negatives and prints are housed in our building. A more recent question. Are photos from military photographers today being archived . Yes. 2007 to present is that the defense Image Management center, and eventually those photos will come to us. Era of question, in the social media, how can you use social media to help educate and inspire using these pictures, young men and women today . We are on twitter and facebook for the book. The great thing about this is that this is the peoples property. All of us on these photographs. So that should be shared widely. s stuff on twitter, and i hope he sees our spirit social media is a great way to get people to stumble across something that they had no idea that they would find interesting, and then spark a passion for it. It is theo think that potential for these photographs to be seen more widely now than they were seen 30 or 40 years ago. Absolutely. Im fixing them up and publishing them every day on various channels, and they appear on the cmh website. We will publish them on my channel because i have subject Matter Experts around the world who help meet with the captions. And they are no, that wasnt that, that was something else. They willin france, go outside and take a photo, and it is that thing. Especially in our busy age, youth or i5 hundredpage book at someone, it is probably not going to happen. But if you have 30 seconds to look at a picture, you find that picture interesting, you want to go deeper, you go to the cmh website to find out more, you buy the book, which is available in the lobby afterwards. There will be a signing. Please do stop. And at libraries, bookstores, amazon and other places. But you will do your part to aboutpread the good word this, again, a Real National treasure. The cool thing about putting them online is that we have experienced already, twitter accounts that started a month ago is that people will comment and say, my grandfather did and, he told me about it, it is just part of every familys story. Each other,talk to which is great. You get this whole conversation that is like, nontoxic. [laughter] bit for goodttle in this world. But again, we will have a signing, so please stop by. On behalf of the u. S. Army center of military history, i want to thank our cosponsors, for theonal archives, opportunity for the event tonight. I want to thank our speakers as well, and all of you for attending. Lets have a round of applause for our panelists. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] for more information on the army role in world war ii, and information on the Army Signal Corps photographers, visit our army. Mil. History. Thank you, all, for coming. Have a great night. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern, American History tv on cspan3 looks back at the Senate Impeachment trial of president bill clinton, which took place over five weeks in january and february 1999. We are here today because the president suffered a terrible moral lapse, a marital infidelity, not a breach of the public trust, not a crime against society, the things talked about in federalist paper 65. I recommend it to you before you vote. But it was a breach of his marriage vows. It was a breach of his family trust. It is a sex scandal. Past. Lore our nations watch the clinton impeachment trial sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. On reel america, american illustrator, a 1960 two u. S. Information Agency Profile of Norman Rockwell. Heres a preview. What made you decide to do the picture, norman . The goldenrealized rule was the only common denominator of all religions, from the very beginning of time. You know, the golden rule which says do unto others as you would have them do unto you . Those colorful costumes and the picture, where do they come from . I took a trip around the world and brought back literally boxes of photographs. I also brought back some of the actual costumes. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you all men are brothers this above all must be true and once you found the costumes, you found the people to put in them . All men are brothers yes. Some more visitors and some were students. His fathers fellow, was on gary and, i think. Is ahis hungarian, he student at present at ohio state university. This is a japanese student. I got her at Bennington College in vermont. And here is a jewish student. He was taking summer courses at indian hills school, a mile or so from here, just up the road. How about the ones that live here all year round . Any of those . Lets see. Retired mr. Lalas, a postmaster of stockbridge. He made a pretty good rabbi, i think. In real life, he is a very devout catholic. See this group, a father, mother and child. Thats the elias family from arlington, vermont. Swedish,ankee, shes and theyve got, i think, 12 kids. Hi didnt get them all in the picture. This little girl here, she is a local girl from pittsfield, it is about 15 miles from here. Her name is susie lee. Chris schaefer is my very good friend and business manager. Boy, was he surprised when he found out he was in the picture. This little girl lives right here in stockbridge, just down the road. Originally. Ese now her parents are u. S. Citizens. I found all my middle east faces from the Street Market just one block from our house. Abdallawonderful time, rounded up 24 arabs. This little girl is the daughter of louis lamoni, he helps me the studio, and he sure would have been mad if i had left her out of the picture. This one is from memory. That is my wife, mary, and that is my grandson. Learn more about artist Norman Rockwell tonight on American History tv. Next on history bookshelf, the book, the man who invented dickens, how charles the christmas we recorded his remarks at the 2017 miami book fair