Purchased by the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College on August 12, 2020 from Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York.

Japanese Dead on Makin: U.S. Coast Guardsmen look over Japanese dead on Makin Island. The guardsmen were operating as part of a Navy task force arriving at Makin in an invasion barge. The Japanese tried to defend the Island from successful attack, Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.

On December 10, 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, 300 Japanese troops plus laborers of the Gilberts Invasion Special Landing Force had arrived off Makin Atoll and occupied it without resistance. Lying east of the Marshall islands, Makin was intended as an excellent seaplane base. It would protect the eastern flank of the Japanese perimeter from an Allied attack by extending Japanese air patrols closer to islands held by the Allies: Howland Island, Baker Island, Tuvalu, and Phoenix and Ellice Islands. The end of the Aleutian Islands Campaign and progress in the Solomon Islands, combined with increasing supplies of men and materials, gave the United States Navy the resources to make an invasion of the central Pacific in late 1943.

Ferrotyped prints are processed in such a way that they are shiny. The print has a sensitive surface, usually thinner, because it was put through a press while still wet.

On recto: Label in bottom right corner, "DISPATCH / PHOTO NEWS / SERVICE / INC. / NEW YORK".

On verso: Typewritten label attached in center, "JAP DEAD ON MAKIN / U. S. Coastguardsmen look over Japanese dead on Makin Island. The guardsmen / were operating as a part of a Navy task force arriving at Makin in an invasion barge. / The Nips had tried to defend the Island from successful attack. / Produced Exclusively by Dispatch Photo News Service, New York City". Handwritten in graphite in top left corner, "DP-WW2-012".

Ferrotyped prints have a sensitive surface, usually shiny and thinner, because they are put through a press while still wet. Ferrotyping makes the surface of the photograph smoother. Light does not scatter as much on a smoother surface, so this increases contrast. That makes ferrotyped images better for press photography.

This object has the following keywords:

• Beach Scenes
• Coast Guard
• Corpses
• Death
• Guardsmen
• Invasion of the Gilbert Islands
• Invasions
• Invasions
• Japan
• Killed in action
• Makin Island
• United States Coast Guard
• United States Navy
• World War II

This object is a member of the following portfolios: