Oregon Voices: They Also Served: A Soldier's Pacific Theater Album, World War II

Abstract

OREGON VOICES They Also Served A SoldiersPacificTheater Album,WorldWar II byFrederick H. Hill withGeorgeVenn and Jan Boles BORN IN 1920 INELGIN,Oregon, photographer Fred Hill grew up in a family that loved cameras, darkrooms, and black-and-white prints. His grandfather had worked with glass plate negatives, and he had taught Fred's mother how to develop and print her own pictures. By the time Fred turned eleven, his father Lynn, who ran the local hardware store, and his mother Etha, a teacher and homemaker, had cleared a space in their cellar, and theirboy was making contact prints.Down in thatdarkroom one day, Fredmustered the courage to develop his first roll of personal film, and thatprocess launched his seventy year quest for memorable, useful, and beautiful images.1 Attending Eastern Oregon Uni versity in La Grande between 1938 and 1940, the novice photographer carried his camera everywhere. Dur ing the summer of 1940,Hill met and befriendedMinor White?later an in ternationally famous fine-art photog rapher ? who was then teaching his firstphotography classes at the Works Progress Administration Art Center in La Grande. Using the Hill fam ily car, White and Hill photographed northeast Oregon together ? more as fellow freelance photographers than as teacher and student. AfterWhite leftLa Grande inNovember 1941,he continued to correspond with Etha Hill, Fred's mother, and in February 1945, the two young photographers met again onMindoro, thePhilippine islandwhere now SargeantWhite was serving inArmy 24th Infantry Intel ligence and Sargeant Hill was working in 5th Air Force Photo Reconnaissance. At their February 1945meeting, they discussed photography, took photo graphs of orchids, and talked about enrolling in a California art school after thewar.2 In July 1940, Hill joined the 41st Division National Guard unit in La 294 OHQ vol. 108, no. 2 ? 2007 Oregon Historical Society s i g &^^^Mfc^?,-^.._I without the filmmagazine attached. these official imagesmake up another part ofHill's Pacific Theater album. Sometimes, other soldiers or pho tographers askedHill's darkroom crew to develop personal film for them. IfHill saw an intriguing or poten tially compelling image, he saved an extra print or two for his collection. Sometimes, he asked other photo lab workers, visitors, or Filipinos to take pictures with his camera ? pictures of groups, of individuals, and of Fred himself. In his published work, Hill refers to all these photographs as the "Fred Hill Collection:' Throughout his two-year deploy ment with the 17thTactical Recon naissance Squadron, Hill also regularly sent Martha another part of thePacific Theater album ? his own black-and white photographs. While stationed on New Guinea foreightmonths, Hill and his fellow soldiers frequently used theirdays off tomake personal photo expeditions: on bases, in local towns and villages, around the countryside. From Japanese wreckage to beautiful ammunition, from native dancers to army fishermen, Hill recorded both military and civilian life. Moving to the island of Biak, he photographed warplanes, drilling wells, blasting la trines, Bob Hope, Frances Langford, darkroom set-up and tear-down, beautifulWACS, Queen Wilhelmina's birthday dancers. Arriving on Leyte in October 1944,he shot photographs of Philippine carabao, cockfights,outrig gers, native women, folk art. Bywar's end, Hill had accumulated over six hundred black-and-white photos.7 Many of those images were made possible by an unlikely source ? aerial reconnaissance film for theK-17 cam era.This film came in rolls ten inches wide by up to two hundred feet long. After a mission, Hill's crew brought themagazine of exposed film to the Hill Venn, and Boles,A Soldier's Pacific Theater Album 297 ??gfc? .50calibermachine guns were mounted in thebombadiers compartment in this B-25J. With twopacket guns mounted on sides of the fuselage and thetop turret gun locked inforwardposition, this photo reconnaissanceplane could also engage in effective strafing attacks. photo lab, and in total darkness, they cut off the exposed portion of thefilm to be developed, printed, annotated, and delivered to commanders. When therewere only ten exposures lefton a roll, theydiscarded that tag end and installed a new two-hundred-foot roll to be loaded in the plane for the next mission. Wasting that end of unex posed film? perhaps ten feet long by ten incheswide ? "tore our...