10 Notable & Famous Photographs from the Second World War
01 / Omaha Beach Landings, Robert Capa
Robert Capa was the only photojournalist in the first wave of soldiers to land on Omaha Beach and the photographs he captured that morning are some of the most famous and profound photos of the entire war. Capa was attached to the 16th Infantry Regiment (1st Infantry Division) and landed on the beach an hour and a half after the first wave near Colleville-sur-Mer. He stated that he had taken 106 photographs before returning to the ships, but it was later discovered that all but 11 had been destroyed. Subsequently there has been some debate about how the photographs were destroyed with theories including that Capa’s cameras had become waterlogged or that the photos were accidentally destroyed by a young assistant whilst being developed in the London lab.
Robert Capa (b. 1913 – d. 1954) was a Hungarian-American war photographer. Born Endre Erno Friedmann, he adopted ‘Robert Capa’ as a professional name when working with his consort and fellow photographer Gerda Taro. Being of Jewish extraction, Capa was forced to flee Hungary to Paris, and again to America where he eventually became an America citizen. Robert Capa photographed numerous wars and historical events including the Spanish Civil War, World War Two, the Founding of Isreal in 1948 and the First Indochina War. He was killed in 1954 stepping on a landmine in French Indochina (Vietnam).
US troops’ first assault on Omaha Beach during the D-Day landings. Normandy, France. June 6, 1944. © Robert Capa © International Center of Photography | Magnum Photos
02 / Two Second Raising Of The Flag On Iwo Jima, Joe Rosenthal
The raising of the Stars and Stripes on the summit (Mount Suribachi) of Iwo Jima is one of the Second World War’s most enduring propaganda photographs. Controversially the photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal was staged after the actual raising of the flag on the mountain summit which was captured by SSgt. Louis R. Lowery (USMC). After the summit was captured, several solders were ordered up the mountain to replace the flag and on their journey up the slopes they met Lowery who told them that it was an excellent vantage point from which to take photographs! Rosenthal, who had accompanied this group, almost missed the shot of the second flag raising because he put his camera down to pile some rocks and only realised at the last moment that the flag was being raised and managed to quickly snap a photograph without using the camera’s viewfinder.
Because this photograph has become one of the most famous photographs of the Second World War it raises important questions about documentary photography versus propaganda. Often actual historic moment caught on film, whilst deeply significant, do not visually carry the necessary weight to be used in propaganda. Joe Rosenthal’s photograph, whilst not a documentary image, illustrates an important point in America’s understanding and recording of World War Two and the war in the Pacific against the Japanese Empire.
The second raising of the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi (Iwo Jima). © Joe Rosenthal
03 / Raising A Flag Over The Reichstag, Yevgeny Khaldei
An equally controversial image captured at the end of the Second World War is the raising of the Soviet Flag on the top of the Reichstag. Regarded as one of the most recognisable and significant photographs of the war, the image captured by Yevgeny Khaldei depicts the Soviet flag being attached to the statue of Germania at the top of the Reichstag. Like the American flag being raised on Mount Suribachi (Iwo Jima), this photograph has a somewhat confusing and murky origin. Due to pressure from Stalin, the Soviets were in a hurry to capture Berlin as quickly as possible and the Reichstag was seen as the symbolic heart of Nazi Germany. Stalin wanted the Reichstag to be capture by May 1st, which in the Soviet Union was International Workers Day (Labour Day), and several flags were dropped by aircraft over the Reichstag whilst fighting ensued below. Several attempts were made to raise the flag, but these became pinned down because the Soviets did not have full control over the Reichstag. After fierce fighting the building was finally captured and fully secured on May 2nd, 1945. Yevgeny Khaldei captured his photograph of the flag being raised with four soldiers after the fighting had finished. The actual moment when the Reichstag was captured was confusing, happened beforehand, and was not captured on film.
The Soviet flag being raised on top of the Reichstag in May 1945. This photograph was actually taken after the fighting had finished (note the parked tanks, military vehicles and people mingling on the streets in the background) and was heavily edited for propaganda purposes afterwards. © Yevgeny Khaldei
04 / St Paul's Survives, Herbert Mason
Daily Mail photographer Herbert Mason’s iconic photograph of St Paul’s spires rising out of the smoke after a German air raid during the Blitz aptly signifies British resistance to Nazi Germany during the war. At this stage in the war Britain stood alone; France had been defeated, and significant help from the United States in the form of Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program and America’s later participation in the war had yet to materialise. Herbert Mason captured his image during the night air raid of 29–30 December 1940 from the roof of his newspaper’s building (Northcliffe House, in Tudor Street). German bombers had destroyed and damaged hundred of buildings that night and Herbert Mason had to wait a long time for the acrid smoke to clear sufficiently for him to capture his photograph. The photograph was published in the Daily Mail on Tuesday 31st December 1940.
Whilst the image held significant propaganda value for British, it was also used by the Germans as evidence that their bombing campaign of the British capital was working! The image was published on the cover of the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung in January 1941.
St Paul's Cathedral shrouded in smoke after a German air raid during the London Blitz. © Herbert Mason
05 / Dead SS Guard, Floating in Canal, Lee Miller
Lee Miller’s contribution to the Second World War and documentary photography is significant because she was one of the very few female photographers working in what was then a male-dominated world. Before becoming a photographer, Miller was one of New York’s most sought-after models working for major fashion publications including Vogue. However in 1929 her fashion career was ended abruptly because of a photograph taken by Edward Steichen without Miller’s consent which was used to advertise Kotex menstrual pads.
Following the effective end of her modelling career Miller traveled to Paris were she worked as an apprentice of Surrealist artist Man Ray. Whilst in Paris Miller established her own studio which did much of Man Ray’s advertising work, allowing him to focus on his painting. During this period Miller was friends with fellow Surrealists Paul Éluard and Jean Cocteau, as well as Pablo Picasso. In 1932 Miller returned to the United States where she set up her own commercial studio before abandoning her studio to marry the Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey. During the following period did not work as a photographer, but continued to take some photographs whilst in Egypt.
Having grown bored of Egypt Miller returned to Europe where she experienced the London Blitz and embarked on a new career as a photojournalist. She teamed up with American photographer David E. Scherman and documented the D-Day Landings, the Battle of Alsace and the liberation of Nazi concentration camps at then end of the war.
Dead SS Guard floating in canal, Dachau, 30th April 1945. © Lee Miller
06 / The Home Front, Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton (b.1904–d.1980) was one of Britain foremost fashion and portrait photographers in the mid-Twentieth Century, however Beaton also produced an astonishing array of work throughout the Second World War, documenting life on The Home Front, Tyneside Shipbuilding and East Asia. Working for the Ministry of Information he also documented the world immediately after the Second World War. Beaton however was not particularly interested in his work produced throughout the war and the entire collection was turned over to the Imperial War Museum in 1948.
My favourite Cecil Beaton photograph from the Second World War is the portrait he took of Eileen Dunne, a small girl recovering in hospital after being injured in an air raid. I was only a child myself when I first saw this photo in the Imperial War Museum and found the expression in her eyes particularly haunting.
You can find out more about Cecil Beaton’s work produced throughout the Second World War at the Imperial War Museum.
Eileen Dunne, aged three, sits in bed with her doll at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, after being injured during an air raid on London in September 1940. © Cecil Beaton
07 / Children Of Europe, David Seymour
David “Chim” Seymore (Dawid Szymin, b.1911–1956) was a Polish photographer and photojournalist who documented the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. Chim was in New York when Nazi Germany invaded his homeland. In 1940 he joined the United States Army and in 1942 became a naturalised citizen. Throughout the war he served in Europe as a photo interpreter and in 1948 Chim was commissioned by UNICEF to document children in Europe who had been affected by the Second World War. You can see more of Chim’s ‘Children of Europe’ series photos here.
After the war Chim co-founded Magnum Photos with photographers Robert Capa, Maria Eisner, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, William Vandivert, and Rita Vandivert. After Robert Capa’s death in 1954 Chim became president of Magnum Photos, a position he occupied until his own death in 1956 to Egyptian machine gun fire in the aftermath of the Suez crisis.
A reformatory school for tough children. Many children go barefoot because of the acute shortage of footwear. Vienna, Austria. 1948.
© David Seymour | Magnum Photos
08 / Japanese Freighter Being Torpedoed, W. Eugene Smith
William Eugene Smith was one of the Twentieth Century’s most important photographers and photojournalists, and helped develop the modern concept of the photographic essay. Smith became interested in photography at a young age thanks to the encouragement and support of his mother who gave him a camera to photograph with at his local airfield and then processed the films afterwards in their home darkroom. Smith became hooked and photographed sports activities in his school, which were published in the local press.
Smith obtained a scholarship and went to study photography at university, but abruptly quit and moved to New York, and in 1938 started working for Newsweek. His relationship with Newsweek was a tempestuous one, with the publication trying to force Smith to photograph with large format cameras instead of the 35mm camera he preferred to work with. Smith quit and started working for Life magazine instead in 1939.
Throughout the Second World War he worked for Ziff-Davis Publishing, but also continued to supply Life magazine with images. He photographed the war in the Pacific including campaigns in Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Whilst photographing in Okinawa he was serious injured, ending his participation in the war.
Post-war Smith joined Magnum Photos and continued his work in photojournalism. Smith’s work laid the basis for modern photojournalism and its humanist approach.
A Japanese freighter in Truk Atoll is hit by a torpedo dropped by a U.S. aeroplane in 1944. © W. Eugene Smith
09 / Red Moon Rising, George Rodger
Another one of the founding members of Magnum Photos, George Rodger was a British photojournalist who covered much of the Second World War including Burma and the liberation of Nazi concentration camps in 1945. Born and raised in Cheshire, when Rodger finished school he joined the British Merchant Navy and sailed the world. During his travels he taught himself photography to illustrate his travelogues. During this pre-war period Rodger struggled to get work as a writer and it was his photography of the London Blitz which gained him a job working for Life magazine.
You can see more of George Rodger’s photos from his Red Mood Rising series on Magnum’s website.
Supplies going across the border in China by pack mule. Burma/China. 1942. © George Rodger | Magnum Photos
10 / A Propagandist & Documentarian, Roman Karmen
Roman Karmen was one of the Second World War’s more controversial photographers in that his work further blurred the lines between propaganda and documentary photography. Karmen was a Soviet war camera-man and film director, and he documented both the Spanish Civil War (where the Soviet Union was fighting a proxy war again fascism) and the Second World War.
Soviet ISU-152s in Berlin, 1945. © Roman Karmen
Interested in history of photography? Don’t hesitate to check out my class The Camera’s Journey Through Time: A Brief History of Photography (available on Skillshare and on Teachable).
