to write subtitles for these pictures, telling what that man thought, would be a mockery of the worst order, for I didn’t even know what he was thinking, when I made the picture. Thus the photographs reflect only what the men in this book did, something of what they felt, and probably very little of what they thought. The book is divided into three chapters. Each chapter deals with a military combat problem . . . the first, an attack upon a hill . . . the second, the capture of a city . . . the third, a fighting retreat. Wishing that it might have been possible to publish this book without a single written word so that the men might tell their own story, yet understanding that there are many people, like my own mother and father, who lack the necessary background for comprehending the ordeals through which these men passed, or the conditions under which they perished, I have prefaced each picture-chapter with a short textblock. Each explains in considerable detail the military situation confronting the troops and their activities as they lived through their days, and nights, while trying to solve those immediate problems. I have tried, in every possible way, to present only a word screen upon which these men project their own story. With the thought that there may also be some of you who are deeply interested in what was happening in Korea during the months before the pictures start telling their story, I have opened the book with a short additional text section which tells of my own personal, very personal, involvement in the Korean War as a correspondent for Life Magazine. I have included four reports, starting in Tokyo with the first day of the war and then General Douglas MacArthur’s first visit to the front. Another deals with my flight with Air Force fighter jets, the first ever made by a correspondent into combat. A third report follows an attack by Republic of Korea troops, and my disappointment at what I learned. The fourth report tells the story of the first bit of action involving U.S. Marines after they landed in Korea. All four of these are included for two definite reasons. The first to cover the general over-all military situation in Korea from that first day late in June, up to the first week in September when the picture section of this book 16 l Ⅱ. In Explanation This is War!
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTMyNzcxNA==