30. The Saipan Stare
In the closing days of the Battle of Saipan, in July, 1944, 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.” Decades later, controversy erupted about the identity of the photo’s subject, when a Santa Fe bar owner claimed that it was of his father, Angelo Klonis, an OSS operative, and that it had been taken in Europe, not Saipan.