PFC Bernard Elissagary, a BAR gunner and consummate collector with Company A, 1/24th Marines, augmented his scrapbooks of souvenirs and personal photographs with these professionally-shot pictures of the Pacific war. Packets of these photographs were available for mass purchase after the war. None have captions, however many are recognizable from popular publications, and a number are quite famous.
If you have any information or official captions corresponding to the photographs shown here, please email the webmaster.
PLEASE NOTE: SOME OF THESE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE EXTREMELY GRAPHIC.
Many of these pictures illustrate the violence, horror, and in some cases the callousness that was adopted by American troops fighting against the Japanese. They are presented exactly as a veteran of that fighting chose to remember it – as an uncensored look at the true nature of combat in the 1940s.
Before almost any invasion, the defenses were softened up by air and sea bombardment. Here, a squadron of Marine PBJ Mitchell bombers is en route to a target.
Bombs explode on a Japanese-held island.
“Jap Fuel Dump Afire. Saipan – Dense black smoke rises thousands of feet in air from Jap fuel dump in blasted Garapan, capital of Saipan, as naval guns lobbed large shells before its capture. Photo by Stanley Troutman, ACME staff photographer for War Picture Pool
A Pacific island, probably an idyllic spot before the war, is marred by smoke and flames.
The results of a Marine bombing strike.
An LST, specially modified to fire rockets, launches a salvo in support of a landing.
A Higgins boat is lowered over the side of its support ship.
A marine’s-eye view of a landing operation.
As a dive bomber passes overhead, LVTs bearing assault troops head for an island that is already shrouded in smoke.
Sailors and support personnel watch from aboard ship as the assault waves are launched.
Waves of marines are landed by LVTs with their objective – an airfield – clearly in view.
Watching an invasion from a Navy ship.
The Marines have landed.
These Marines are pinned down on the beach. One man, at left, has found the courage or necessity to make a run forward.
Additional waves of marines come ashore. The fact that these men are walking in standing up indicates that they are not the first to cross this beach.
Marines get organized on a Pacific beachhead.
Smoke billows from a cave in a small cliff face as American troops search for survivors.
As a stretcher case is brought back (at left) supply personnel and Shore Party men organize the beachhead.
As the battle moved inland, support troops worked to improve the beachhead. Here, a bulldozer grades a path to help supply vehicles get off the beach.
Marines wait for The Word in the safety of a Japanese anti-tank ditch.
The photographer flinched while snapping this photograph – the plume of smoke in the background is an exploding mortar shell. The marine with the carbine was hit by shrapnel; some captions state he was killed by the blast.
A distressing sight on the way to or from the lines – American dead laid out on stretchers.
Close tank-infantry support was crucial. The tanks took care of fortified positions, while the infantry shot any suicide attackers armed with mines.
These Marine tankers are either evaluating one of their own wounded or preparing to evacuate someone else.
The scene of a bitter fight. Two Japanese machine guns have been eliminated, as has a Japanese aircraft in the background. The marine is carrying a Samurai sword, probably a souvenir of this incident.
As a marine with a carbine covers the entrance, a pistol-toting officer moves up to clear out a bunker.
A marine inspects a well-built bunker, whose inhabitants have been dragged out and dumped in the brush.
Light Japanese tanks were vulnerable to American tanks, bazookas, mortars, and in some cases even small-arms fire.
Marines cautiously inspect a destroyed Japanese tank.
A large explosion raises little interest from the American troops in the foreground.
An infantry unit moves up to the front.
Marines on patrol pause as a man with a flamethrower burns a potential obstacle.
The results of a successful patrol – marines on their feet, and the enemy dead in the foreground.
An M4 Sherman tank roars past an abandoned blockhouse.
What little is left of this town is now firmly under Marine control.
Japanese troops – their mangled bodies in the foreground – attempted to overrun a small marine camp during a nighttime infiltration.
These Japanese were killed manning their artillery piece.
A marine overlooks a ditch full of dead Japanese troops.
The effects of a tropical climate on the dead are horribly illustrated in this study of a Japanese soldier.
Dead Japanese troops in a waterlogged fighting hole.
Dead Japanese soldiers in a fighting hole.
This Japanese soldier was killed with a grenade in his hand. Feigning death and detonating grenades when Americans were nearby was a common tactic; marines learned to shoot any bodies they saw.
Japanese dead in a prepared fighting position. The pole at center likely supported a heavy automatic weapon.
This gruesome picture shows a Japanese soldier who emerged from a spider hole directly into the path of a flamethrower.
Even religious shrines became scenes of death.
“This battle-worn Marine weeps from sheer fatigue as he rests briefly on a fallen tree trunk after he and fellow Leathernecks had wrested Hill 200 overlooking Peleliu Airport from the Japs in some of the bitterest fighting encountered by the Yanks in the Pacific. Photo by Stanley Troutman, NEA-ACME Newspictures, war correspondent for the war picture pool.”
Photo provided by Stan Troutman’s daughter, Gayle, who adds: “For this shot, I remember Dad telling me he purposefully did not shoot the Marine’s face to give him privacy.”
A rare circumstance – Japanese prisoners escorted along a beach by their American captors.
Marines who have died of their wounds are buried at sea from a hospital ship.
Although burial at sea was considered a formal burial, many men whose remains were committed to the deep were later listed as Missing In Action.
The ferocity of Pacific fighting became evident early in the war, as shown by the shattered bodies of Japanese soldiers on Guadalcanal after a failed attack on Edson’s Ridge in November, 1942.
An advance aid station set up in the shelter of a wrecked Japanese bomber on Roi. These wounded men from the 23rd Marines have had their faces blanked out by a wartime censor.
Marines move down a beach littered with supplies. Date and location unknown.
These Army tanks, mired in soft ground, came under attack by waves of Japanese infantry.
A GI takes cover near a small Japanese artillery piece.
Marine and Army troops rest on an invasion beach. The amphibious tank in the background has been hit by something which has caused its ammunition to explode, destroying the machine from the inside.
The landings on Saipan as seen from one of the Navy’s ships.
A religious marine takes time out from the slaughter.
Marines debark from an LVT as one of their comrades accelerates over a slight rise on Guam.
A marine patrol on Guam watches as a flamethrower attacks a Japanese position.
Japanese dead in Agana, Guam, July 1944.
Pinned down by enemy fire, these marines try to find a way inland.
Despite the best efforts of the corpsmen, it seems that the man on the stretcher has died. Note the looks on the faces of the men, and the fact that no medical personnel are attending to the bandaged marine.
American troops on Peleliu search a body for identification.
Marines crouch in a shellhole. The man standing at center may be a platoon or company commander establishing a CP.
An assault team at center races back from planting a charge in an enemy position.
Hello Geoffrey: The photo of the Marine sitting on the tree trunk with his head down and weeping was taken by my father, Stanley Troutman. I have the newspaper proof sheet with the following caption: Luzon – “This battle-worn Marine weeps from sheer fatigue as he rests briefly on a fallen tree trunk after he and fellow Leathernecks had wrested Hill 200, overlooking Peleliu Airport, from the Japs in some of the bitterest fighting encountered by the Yanks in the Pacific. Photo by Stanley Troutman, NEA-ACME Newspictures, war correspondent for the war picture pool.” Gayle R.
Hello. I believe my grandfather must have purchased a pack of photographs as you mention above as I have copies of at least 5 photos presented here, along with many others not included here. Most of the photos that belong to him are not captioned (they’re just numbered), however, the photo above named “enemydead9” has “Saipain” written on the back.
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Hello Geoffrey: The photo of the Marine sitting on the tree trunk with his head down and weeping was taken by my father, Stanley Troutman. I have the newspaper proof sheet with the following caption: Luzon – “This battle-worn Marine weeps from sheer fatigue as he rests briefly on a fallen tree trunk after he and fellow Leathernecks had wrested Hill 200, overlooking Peleliu Airport, from the Japs in some of the bitterest fighting encountered by the Yanks in the Pacific. Photo by Stanley Troutman, NEA-ACME Newspictures, war correspondent for the war picture pool.” Gayle R.
Hello. I believe my grandfather must have purchased a pack of photographs as you mention above as I have copies of at least 5 photos presented here, along with many others not included here. Most of the photos that belong to him are not captioned (they’re just numbered), however, the photo above named “enemydead9” has “Saipain” written on the back.