A Creative Hiatus

I was driving down Sunset Boulevard the other day when a billboard for Steven Spielberg’s The Pacific blindsided me.

Two decades ago, my father bequeathed his collection of  World War II images to me, and I’ve been letting them fade and crumble.  He was an Army Signal Corps photographer stationed mostly in the Philippines.

That night, I wrote this introduction:

In the summer of 1942, the U.S. Army called up a skinny California boy barely out of his teens. But at 5’9’’ and 125 pounds, Private Glenn W. Eve was deemed unfit for combat.

He might have spent the duration of World War II at a desk, except that he had field skills the Army needed – he was a gifted artist, draftsman and photographer who’d spent the previous four years working for the Walt Disney Co.

In July 1944, they promoted him to private first class (Pfc) and assigned him to the Signal Photo Corps, bound for the Pacific to document the war. This is his collection, never before published.

I’ve been scanning furiously and plan to process over 150 images in three weeks.  Please  stop by Pacific War Photos to view them.

My father tried hard to glimpse humanity in the midst of war.  The image above is one of my favorites.

See you in a few!

Elle B.