With the Fifth Army Air Force: Photos from the Pacific Theater - Hardcover

Gallagher, James P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801868491 ISBN 13: 9780801868498

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001

Synopsis

In 1942, Baltimore native James P. Gallagher enlisted in the Army Air Force and a year later was on active duty in the Southwest Pacific Theater as a communications officer. Among the personal belongings he took was a Baldaxette camera. An amateur photographer, Gallagher hoped one day to put together a scrapbook of his overseas tour. The army made no objections to its airmen taking pictures as long as they avoided radar equipment and Americans killed in action. Fifty years later, Gallagher's photos have been collected in With the Fifth Army Air Force, an absorbing and highly personal photographic record of America's war in the Pacific.

These pictures reveal a different side of the war than do the works of either official military photographers or photojournalists. Through Gallagher's lens, we see the everyday life of the airmen stationed on a Pacific airbase, from the poor living conditions to such routine activities as watching movies on a sheet strung between two trees, playing volleyball, or decorating planes with paintings of pinups. Other photos capture the raw experience of the war: the terrible beauty of nighttime attacks and the vast destruction wreaked upon the jungle islands. After the war's end, Gallagher was stationed in occupied Japan, where he recorded the devastation suffered by the enemy. But he also found places untouched by the war and still serene; he caught fascinating shots of Japanese civilians apparently happy to see the Americans. One photograph records an extraordinary softball game between American and Japanese troops only weeks after the Japanese surrender.

With the Fifth Army Air Force traces Gallagher's―and the American military's―progress from New Guinea and New Britain to Leyte, Lingayen Gulf, and Okinawa. Accompanied by Gallagher's charming, often drily and darkly comical recollections of his wartime experiences, these photographs offer a refreshing new perspective on the hardships, hazards, and camaraderie of America's war in the Pacific.

About this title

From the Publisher

"A splendid book. Historians of later generations will be looking for works exactly like Gallagher's. His photographs and writings present this phase of the war as well as or better than even the best documentaries on the subject."—Eric Bergerud, author of Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific

"An extraordinary visual record of World War II in the Pacific. I was particularly affected by seeing the photographs of Tokyo after the war and struck time and again by the haunting images of badly damaged aircraft and the poignancy of lush tropical settings scarred by the devastation of war. This is a splendid group of photographs that are worthy of comparison to the camera work of a Matthew Brady."—W. David Lewis, Auburn University

About the Author

James P. Gallagher served with the 33rd Fighter Control Squadron and 49th Fighter Group of the Fifth Army Air Force from 1942 to 1945. After the war, he worked as an account executive at a Maryland securities firm and continued to take pictures. Now retired, Gallagher lives in Baltimore. He remains active in veteran groups. His previous books include Trackside Maryland: From Railyard to Main Line (with Jacques Kelly).

Edition details

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0801868491
• ISBN 13: 9780801868498
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192