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Question relating to Desert War in WWII

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Lord Ball (U1767246) on Monday, 29th August 2005

  I presume that most of you have seen one of the defining pictures the War in the Desert. It is the one with the British Officer with his revolver walking while crouched, while a soldier just past him in the photograph is stepping over barbed wire with his rifle, bayonet fixed. Does anyone know anymore about that picture?

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  Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Monday, 29th August 2005

  Lord Ball,
  
  I think you'll find that most of these photographs (of the Western Desert) were staged, if sort of based on real events. Check out the clarity of the photographs vs those taken by Capa? on D Day.
  
  It's the same sort of trap the Daily Mirror got into.
  
  AA.

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  Posted by Gilgamesh of Uruk (U211168) on Tuesday, 30th August 2005

  The most debated "staged" photo is the flag raising on Iwo Jima - some say it was staged, some say it wasn't.
  
  BTW - do you mean Frank Capra rather than Capa

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  Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Friday, 2nd September 2005

  No, I think I do mean Capa (Robert) born Andre Friedman, who went ashore at Omaha Beach with the landings, although it can be argued that some of the photographs he took were somewhat altered during development (which increases their authenticity suprisingly), they do depict real events.
  
  Apologies for the late response Gilgamesh of Uruk) but I had to go and check. I do think Mr Capra also did some fine work.
  
  Cheers AA.

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  Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Friday, 2nd September 2005

  Gil, Ira Hayes wasn't too happy about the publicity that's for certain.

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  Posted by Dirk Marinus (U1648073) on Saturday, 3rd September 2005

  The most debated "staged" photo is the flag raising on Iwo Jima - some say it was staged, some say it wasn't.
  
  BTW - do you mean Frank Capra rather than CapaΒ 
  
  
  The famous picture "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" is a famous photograph taken on 23 February 1945, by Joe Rosenthal, but it actually captured the second flag-raising on that day.
  
  Earlier, Marines had raised a flag there, but it was too small to be seen.
  That first flag raising was captured on film by a Sergeant Louis R. Lowery.
  
  The Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, had decided the previous night that he wanted to go ashore and witness the final stage of the fight for the mountain. Now, under a stern commitment to take order from Major-General Holland β€œHowlin”Mad” Smith, the secretary was churning ashore in the company of the blunt, earthy general.
  
  Their boat touched the beach just after the flag went up, and the mood among the high command turned jubilant. Gazing upward, at the red, white, and blue speck, Forrestal remarked to Smith: 'Holland, the raising of that flag on Mount Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years'.
  
  Forrestal was so taken with fervor of the moment that he decided he wanted the Mount Suribachi flag as a souvenir.
  
  The news of this wish did not sit well with a Colonel Chandler Johnson, whose temperament was every bit as fiery as Howlin Mad Smith’s. 'To hell with that!' the colonel spat when the message reached him.
  The flag belonged to the battalion, as far as Johnson was concerned.
  
  He decided to secure it as soon as possible, and dispatched his assistant operations officer, Lieutenant Ted Tuttle, to the beach to scare up a replacement flag. As an afterthought, Johnson called after Tuttle 'And make it a bigger one'".
  
  That order made its way down the ranks until the five marines of Company E (2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment, 5th Marine Division) got the order.
  Along with a Navy corpsman, they raised the US flag using an old water pipe for a flagpost.
  
  Of the six men pictured Michael Strank, Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, John Bradley (the Navy Corpsman) and Harlon Block only three (Hayes, Gagnon, and Bradley) survived the war.
  
  The photo won the 1945 for best photo; the only photograph to win in the same year it was taken.
  In 1954, the image was memorialised as a large, bronze statue, the USMC War Memorial at Arlington National Cementry.
  
  It is also said that the much published photograph of General Douglas MacArthur wading ashore the Philipines was staged.
  
  Don't know if that is true.
  

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