Another artist featured in the PBS series They Drew Fire, Combat Artists of World War II, Ed Reep, captured this scene.  While he tries to paint the image colorfully, there’s no doubt, based on his description, that his subject had an unimaginably colorful character.  After ending the war as an Army Captain, Ed would go on to teach at the Art Center College at East Carolina University and the California Institute of the Arts.

Ed writes, “There was a fellow who hauled a bathtub out of Notuno, and filled it with water, and then he punched a hole in the gas tank and lit it. The painting was nutty. That’s all there was to it. How in the world could this man be smiling on a beach-head where shell fire would come all the time, constantly?”  You can see this painting on PBS’s Website. This painting is currently located at the U.S. Army Center for Military History in Washington, D.C.

Thanks to Robert for providing me a good link into the Library of Congress for these and many other pics to be displayed later.

By all accounts a life long artist, Howard Brodie has captured sports figures, war events, legal battles and more with his drawing talents.  He sketched his way through several wars, from World War II in Guadacanal, the Battle of the Bulge and more, to Korea, French Indochina, and Vietnam.  As best I can tell, he is still alive and, hopefully, drawing at his home in San Miguel, California.  He is currently being featured by PBS as part of a series called They Drew Fire, Combat Artists of World War II.

In this sketch, American soldiers in a jeep travel down the road to Kokumbona on Guadalcanal island, past abandoned Japanese field pieces during the World War II Battle of Guadalcanal.  Library of Congress.

In this sketch, soldiers are taking a “K.I.A.” down a jeep trail from Mt. Aestin Guadalcanal. Library of Congress