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Online Museum of Creativity |
Item: Photograph of Pearl Harbor Wreckage
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Harold S. Fawcett (1917-1999), a
Navy photographer stationed at Pearl Harbor in late 1941, reached immortality in
about 1/500 of a second, the approximate length of time it took him to snap this
historic image. The photo shows the wreckage of the U.S.S. Pennsylvania
and destroyers Downes and Cassin, in the aftermath of the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The New York
Times reported that he "captured memorable scenes of the
Japanese attack ... Some of [his] photographs of
mighty American warships exploding, burning and rolling belly up were considered
too disturbing to be made public soon after the outbreak of World War II. These
images began to be published on the first anniversary of the attack in Life
magazine and in many American newspapers."
Later in the war, based on the Bikini atoll, he "photographed the detonation of two hydrogen bombs." This photograph has been reproduced in many books, including Collier's Photographic History of World War II, which reunion president Mark A. Miner displayed at our reunion in 2006. Harold was the grandson of Robert Patterson Fawcett of Webster, near Grafton, and the great-great grandson of Phoebe (Miner) Fawcett, an early pioneer of Preston County, WV.
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Copyright © 2006 Mark A. Miner