Art and the Pacific War

When the call to arms came to the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was heeded not just by American citizens but by corporations and businesses as well. There were electricians, store owners, bankers, mechanics, factory workers, and engineers. Among the millions of men and women who gave themselves to the war effort were artists, both professionals and hobbyists, who used their creative talents in various capacities. They created propaganda pieces, drew scenes of battles for magazines and newspapers, and even served in the military themselves, often utilizing their talents to sketch life around them or paint images on aircraft. Art was prevalent in the Pacific Theater as artists used the destruction and violence of war as their inspiration to create, leaving lasting evidence of World War II in art form.

The Army created the War Art Unit in late 1942 to document the activities of the war and selected its first artists by the following spring. There were 42 artists—including 19 civilians—who were to serve under this unit, and the first of them were sent to the Pacific to begin their work, but it was not long-lived. Congress removed the war art program’s funding in May 1943, forcing the Army to deactivate the unit, let go of the civilian artists, and reassign their military artists elsewhere. But this did not end the role of artists in the war, nor even in the military. The Navy also had a combat art program. Sailors and Marines sketched and painted scenes from battles, patrols, bomb strikes, and invasion forces. Their art became among the first introductions of war scenes to the American public. Even with the military programs, civilian companies like Life magazine also took up the challenge—even taking over some contracts of men from the War Art Program—and employed artists to record the war in their unique ways.

Dozens of artists served as war correspondents during World War II, and those who served in the Pacific Theater rendered firsthand visual accounts of the war around them, from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima. Some were contracted to depict specific segments of the war, such as those hired by Abbott Pharmaceuticals. Robert Benney, who served in the Marianas and Saipan, was contracted by the company to focus on the medical aspects of the war. Others, like David Fredenthal and Tom Lea, sketched any scenes they encountered. The War Department supported these artists in the same manner they were already supporting other war correspondents such as journalists and photographers.

There were other artists involved in the Pacific War who were not explicitly commissioned or contracted but left a body of work that profoundly exhibited the realities of the war. Frank Fujita, Jr., who served in the Army, was captured by the Japanese at Java in 1942 and spent most of the war in POW camps. In these camps, Fujita, a cartoonist since high school, sketched the daily goings-on at his camp despite his captors’ warnings that to do so would mean death. His sketches of torture, squalid conditions, and emaciated men were kept in a secret diary that he hid at Omori Prison in Tokyo and were not made public until after the war. Fujita eventually published his POW diary and drawings, giving the world another inside view of the war. Other POWs, such as Benjamin Steele of the Army Air Corps, chose to draw their experiences after the war. Steele fought at Bataan and was captured when the Allied forces were forced to surrender and spent the rest of the war as a POW. He survived the Japanese “hell ships” and numerous diseases in the POW camps and was working in a coal mine near Hiroshima at the end of the war. Later in life, he used his artistic talents to illustrate his experiences.

Not all the art produced during the war or by the troops was for documentary purposes. Some units and bases produced their own newspapers and comics, which the artistically inclined among them would contribute. Men who were artists in their pre-war lives used their talents to raise morale among their fellow comrades, and amateurs used the opportunities to hone or show off their skills to the same ends. Artistic troops would also create logos for units or nose art for planes. Some were even paid to paint nose art for friends, anything from pinup girls to cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Dumbo.

Walt Disney Studios itself became involved in the war with its artwork, although initially, the famed artist was hesitant to associate his whimsical, family-friendly work with war and politics. The studio designed emblems for military units and allowed many beloved characters, such as Donald Duck, the Seven Dwarves, and Bambi, to be used for war bonds and other government activities. It produced propaganda videos on how to save bacon grease for explosives and tin cans for war production, among others. Characters were depicted in factories and the military, and Disney even signed a contract to create training videos for the military and government contract companies.

After the United States entered WWII, Americans from all backgrounds gave themselves and their abilities to serve their country. Art and artists became important vehicles for communicating information to the military and the public about the goings-on of the war. Companies sponsored these artists or used their own creative capabilities to raise morale and awareness of the country’s needs. In such an extraordinary time, even the most unlikely sources served the common goal, and the artists of the 1940s left behind a legacy of thousands of works illustrating the war and what life was like in the Pacific Theater.

Read More:

Brown University Library, "Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors"

MacArthur Memorial, "Ben Steele POW Exhibit"

National Parks Service, "WAPA Nose Art"

Smithsonian Magazine, "How Disney Propaganda Shaped Life on the Home Front During WWII"

Texas Co-op Power, "Tom Lea's War"

U.S. Army Center for Military History, "U.S. Army Combat Artist Program"

U.S. Department of Defense, "Artful Patriotism: DOD and Disney"

U.S. Naval Institute, "Combat Artists of Guadalcanal"