The Pacific

While Peter wrote during the war, his counterpart photographers captured the events the Marines lived through in the Pacific in 1945. Here is a piece of their story.

Captions printed on the back of each photos describe the scene.

LAST DAYS OF THE CAMPAIGN
Do not release prior to August 12, 1945
The capture of the Japanese headquarters in the honeycombed caves of Kushi-Take mountain, which had been pounded by Marine planes based at Yontan field, signified the final phase of the struggle for Okinawa. The teamwork of American land, sea and air forces smashed all organized enemy resistance on the key Ryuku base and remnants of the Jap Army were driven into the sea. This series of pictures portrays the bitter battle to dislodge the enemy from the southern sector of the island in the last days of the campaign.

HAVING A HEAT WAVE
A Marine Corsair pulls out of it's fire-bomb run as the missile bursts into flame on the target-a Japanese cave position in the southern Okinawa ridges. Aerial attacks neutralized many of the enemy strongpoints in this area enabling the ground forces to drive the Japs into the sea.

Photo by Lieutenant David D. Duncan

YOU CAN'T KID HIM
Marines on Okinawa try to reunite a goat family separated by the pre-invasion blasting of the island, but junior doesn't seem to recognize the mater. The Leathernecks are, (left to right): Privates Henry J. Meeks, 740 - 10th St., Bowling Green, Ky., and Charles W. Summers, 1013 North Island Avenue, Bloomington, Calif.

A QUIET LAGOON
Quiet reigned when this picture was made of the lagoon on Tarawa Island but a few short hours earlier it was an inferno. Bodies float in the water along with amphibious tractors and on tractor still hangs on the seawall it attempted to navigate during the landing.

THE PLAINS OF ENIWETOK
Marines with rifles at ready, advance across desolate Perry Island in the wake of fleeing Japs, as the marines took Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The palm trees were either uprooted or deleafed by the bombardment and its concussion laid down before the Leathernecks came ashore to clean out the holed-up Japs.

AIR MAIL SPECIAL
Jubilant Marines gather parapacks of mail dropped by a transport plane for Leatherneck troops on the American-held portion of Iwo Jima. Large quantities of blood plasma were delivered in a similar "raid."