15. The Identity of One of WWII’s Most Iconic Marines Was Hidden (and Stolen) For Decades
In the closing days of the 1944 Battle of Saipan, photographer W. Eugene Smith snapped a photo of a US Marine rifleman that captured the weariness and wariness of combat as few photos have before or since. The image appeared in LIFE Magazine, and subsequently became famous as ‘The Saipan Stare’. Unfortunately, a controversy about the identity of the photo’s subject erupted decades later, when a Santa Fe bar owner claimed that it was of his father, Angelo Klonis. The son believed that his father had been an OSS operative, and that the photo was taken in Europe, not Saipan. The claims were initially taken at face value, but subsequent research debunked them. According to wartime records, Klonis was not an OSS operative, but a cook whose unit’s baptism of fire occurred in France, two days after the iconic photograph was taken in Saipan.
Evidence supports that the photographer correctly labeled the photo for what it was: that of a Marine in Saipan. The subject is wearing a Marine camouflage cover on his helmet. He is clad in Marine dungarees. His equipment is secured by Marine straps, not Army ones. Photos before and after on the photographer’s contact sheet depict personnel with unit patches of the 1st Battalion, 24h Marines. Finally, the photographer’s original caption for the image reads “T. E. Underwood, 24th Batt. St. Petersburg, FL“. There was a PFC Thomas Ellis Underwood from Saint Petersburg, Florida, who fought in Saipan, serving as a squad leader with Company B, 1/24 Marines. He fought in Iwo Jima the following year, earned a Bronze Star, and was killed in action at age 22.