This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
Walter L. Richardson, the battleship cook who became the first °fficial Navy Photographer, was also a naval aviator. “Uncle Dick,” as Chief Lyman Goodnight called him, must have been pleased that many of the great photographs of World War II depicted naval aviation, One of the former sea-cook’s “sons” was on the deck of the Saratoga (CV-3) in November 1943 to record the almost Pieta- *ke image of a wounded enlisted rear gunner being removed from his Avenger torpedo plane.
Another of Richardson’s sons was in that plane, slumped in the seat ahead of the gunner’s turret. Photographer’s Mate First Class Paul “arnett had been killed by machine gun fire as he photographed a head-on picture of an approaching Zero.
World War I was characterized at the time by a Brit: “New weapons, tactics grace the ancient game. But dust and mud are much the bloody same.” It was a soldier’s war in which the "Soldiers of the Sea,” the U. S. Marines, staked their first claim to immortality at Bel- leau Wood, but in which the Navy and, thus, naval photography played mostly
Part I of this pictorial, covering naval photography from its beginnings through 1941, was published in the June 1986 Proceedings, pages 67-72.
a supporting role.
Not so in World War II. No American was ready for Pearl Harbor, but a case might be made that naval photography was ready for World War II. The Richardson-Goodnight team had been in place for 22 years and would remain so throughout the war, but younger men would be needed. One was Navy Lieutenant Robert S. Quackenbush, who had been ordered to England in the spring of 1941 to observe and adopt British photointerpretation methods. On his return to the United States,
he set up the first photographic i pretation school. . ej at
Naval photographers were trai March of Time/Movietone News, man Kodak, and Fairchild Came ^ Company, as well as at the tography School at Pensacola. ser-
guished photographers offered j0hn
vices to the Navy. Movie dircc < ^ny Ford directed Navy filming, an j jn former civilian photographers se combat photographic units (Cl ’hen-
squadrons, and ships. Edward at age 62, headed up nine CP s'
School
’used the photo interpretation
than pC^Cn’ w*10 was nine years older his lchardson, had some “boys” of the <5Wn t0 t0 the growing ranks of Lje °ns °* the Sea-Cook. One was wan.enant ^arrett Gallagher, whose sprin'T serv‘ce under Steichen was the stin 8 °ard t0 a highly successful,
Phnt°n®°’n® career as a free-lance pn°tographer.
gfaph'1*10 *K,me fr°nt. the Naval Photo- iish |IC ^c'ence Laboratory was estab- It ho?..ln.V'fashington’ D- C” in 1943‘
and center, plus 18 other divisions supporting the war effort with 500 personnel. It was later renamed the Naval Photographic Center. During this crucial wartime period, more than 1,500 naval officers and 5,300 enlisted men received training at the Navy photography school. One noteworthy graduate—on 22 April 1944—was Photographer Second Class Walter L. Richardson, Jr., the sea-cook’s son and namesake. When the elder Richardson died in June 1945, his mantle passed to Quackenbush, the naval aviator who had graduated from the U. S. Naval
World War II was the magnet that attracted John Ford and Edward Steichen, who recruited the likes of Barrett Gallagher, whose wartime stills still stop us in our tracks. No less a talent scout was Rear Admiral Robert Quackenbush—seen at High- jump in 1947—whose prewar stable of stars included Richard Conger, the hotshot enlisted photographer, who followed his leader, Quackenbush, to both polar regions in Operations Nanook and Highjump.
Academy and, in 1933, the School of Photography, and who would lead the Sons into realms—for example, atomic energy and underwater photography— unknown to his mentors Richardson and Goodnight.
The largest field photographic operation took place in 1946 during the atomic bomb tests on Bikini Atoll, code named Operation Crossroads. Postwar photographers also took part in Operation Highjump, an expedition to the Antarctic operating from the carrier Philippine Sea (CVA-47). In 1948, the photographer’s mate rating was changed from PHOM to PH, and the symbol of the camera on the rating badge was replaced by divergent light rays passing through a lens.
Like the 1940s, the 1950s began in war as conflict in Korea flared. Many ex-photographers were recalled to active duty, and those already in service were extended to meet the demands of the crisis. During this action, reconnaissance missions flown by propeller and jet fighters provided vital information on enemy installations, logistic
movements, bombing targets, a ^ damage assessment. On the gr0 QroUp members of the Pacific Com a documented the war. ^ .
With the end of the Korean ^ t0 naval photography planners strUS q|_ keep pace with the changing tc^ ^ ogy in a new series of ships an of]. craft. Jet aircraft used for aerta e{&s naissance saw the size of the cthe and film reduced to 70-mm- r0 old nine-inch width. In later ye jy there was a compromise to s ig gy larger cameras and five-inch >
COme,Jd °f the 1950s, a new era of "'ith^h* Photography was launched of r . corr>missioning of a new class 59) aiTler’ USS Forrestal (CVA- craftr t'lc introduction of new air- l^p o or aerial reconnaissance, the I9g, j Crusaders. They were tested in w),e Kring t*le Cuban Missile Crisis for p 1 ■ Provided vital information that res'^ent John F. Kennedy during j^rucial period.
neCg "lc 1960s, specialization became a baSSary' ^avai photographers needed Slc knowledge of mathematics,
electronics, chemistry, physics, and English in order to master their field.
Navy photographers were sent to the University of Southern California to study motion picture production techniques. And, until Gramm-Rudman- Hollings Act cutbacks forced a cancellation of the program this year, photojoumalists attended a nine-month course of study at Syracuse University. The Navy school of photography has now expanded its scope to include television production techniques.
With the Vietnam War, the number
The Navy has been the most lax of all the services in giving credit to its photographers. Today’s Navy Photo School textbook, for example, features 389 photos taken by Navy personnel over the years. An astonishing 58% are credited “Unknown.” The six former enlisted photographers on these two pages—and others—were spared similar anonymity when their work was published, with appropriate credit, in Proceedings pictorial features.
of naval photographers increased to 3,600, the majority of whom supported the intelligence effort. Every carrier deployed during the conflict had a photo reconnaissance detachment on board. The detachments, flying either the highly computerized RA-5 Vigilante or the venerable Crusader, flew daily missions keeping track of troop movements, bombing raids, and damage assessment. In the highly technical integrated operational intelligence center on board the new carriers, photographers processed film in minutes through auto
matic roller transport processors and produced prints minutes later for analysis by photo intelligence personnel. Often there were surface-to-air missiles in flight spotted on the negatives.
Telling the story of the Navy and Marines in Southeast Asia during this time were Combat Camera Group photographers, many of whom were attached to in-country staffs. Through the eyes of these photojournalists and motion picture cameramen, the war was brought home to America in magazines and on television.
Today’s Navy commanders ^0_ versatile tool at their disposal. ^ visual commands and specialists ^ provide them with the means an ^ ^ rials to communicate effectively 0 jp wide range of topics. Shipping lance photographers can help then identify ships and their threats. Through photographs, they can * causes for equipment failures an breakdowns. . anJ
In the areas of human relations ^ morale, commanders can make selves accessible to their whole cf
an<j sh'Pboard information, training, C]„s"7ertainment (SITE) systems. rnan ,. ~c,rcuit television gives com- bi-je|- '[*8. officers the opportunity to tajn’ t‘le'r crews daily and to hold cap- Ptov' i- s more easily. As well as ln§ entertainment in off-hours, train- S^slcrns can be used for showing D<irt l11® ffifns, newscasts, and liberty ^briefings.
saric ,u§h manned aerial reconnais- thc^ a'rcraft may become a thing of stii| Ust’ *^e Nayy photographer will Process the film shot from camera
pods hung on wings of fast attack and patrol aircraft.
The peacetime Navy now has a force of about 1,610 photographer mates and 84 photojournalists to maintain, gather, and process film for the fleet and shore establishment. The members of this naval community take their jobs seriously. To them photography is not just an expensive hobby, but, rather, a highly dedicated profession in which they can serve and contribute to the Navy’s mission.
In the uneasy peace that preceded and followed Bob Moeser’s sensitive coverage of Vietnam, many Sons returned to their roots in aviation where, for example, intelligence film from manned flights over Cuba in 1962 was studied by, left, Commander Jerry Pulley, the legendary Mustang who still serves naval photography. Today, modern Sons like frequent Proceedings contributor Jeff Hilton record the doings of the Iowa off Central America.
V
^dings / August 1086
61