The Saipan Stare
In July of 1944, in the closing days of the Battle of Saipan, photographer W. Eugene Smith snapped a photo of a US Marine that captured the weariness and wariness of combat as few photos have before or since. It appeared in LIFE Magazine, with the caption: “Surrounded by the enemy, with bullets whizzing from all directions, this Soldier jerked his head around as one bullet cracked uncomfortably close. He was about 100 feet from the front lines, on the day after the famous breakthrough on Saipan, and had been practically hand-driving Japs out of their pillboxes. More than 2,000 Japs were killed in the drive to the sea.”
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 taken at face value at first, 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 years, earned a Bronze Star, and was killed in action at age 22.