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World War II played a pivotal role in the education of Americans ... Wartime policies and circumstances also left a legacy of ignorance. Even as governmental and private organizations provided the public with the massive amounts of information necessary for productive involvement in the war effort, they withheld information deemed detrimental to that effort. This article examines the censorship of visual materials.

Because of the immense popularity of Life magazine, other illustrated publications, and newsreels and films, visual imagery played a major role in educating Americans as to the nature of the war. Military personnel reviewed all pictures taken in American war zones and censored many, most for reasons of operational security, but some because they might raise disturbing questions.

Hollywood studios, newspaper editors, and others involved in presenting images of the war occasionally disagreed with official policies (as did some in government) I but usually made similar choices as to what the public should and should not see of the war.

Thousands of recently declassified photographs in the National Archives reveal that censors suppressed images that blurred the distinction between friend and foe, suggested that the war might bring about disruptive social changes, or undermined confidence in the ability of Americans to maintain control over their institutions and their individual lives.

The Images We Did Not See: Photographs published during the war created the impression that American bombs, bullets, and artillery shells killed only enemy soldiers. Pictures of young, elderly, and female victims always ended up in the files of censored images.

So did photographs of the residents in allied and occupied countries killed in traffic accidents involving military vehicles. Wartime necessities often required weary soldiers to rush these vehicles through unfamiliar terrain. Investigators visually recorded the numerous casualties that resulted.

Authorities censored all the documents they produced, such as a poignant photograph showing a little Italian girl killed by an army truck after American troops occupied the southern part of her country.

Atrocities: The enemy committed all visible atrocities. Officials suppressed photographs of G.I ' s taking Japanese body parts as trophies. On rare occasions visual evidence of this practice slipped through holes in the censorship net, such as when Life published in its May 22, 1944, issue a photograph of a prim woman from Arizona looking at a Japanese skull that her Navy boyfriend had managed to get smuggled home to her. He and thirteen friends had signed it and added an inscription: "This is a good Jap, - a dead one picked up on the New Guinea beach."

But officials censored all such photographs under their control, such as a 1945 image of a Japanese soldier's decapitated head hung on a tree branch, probably by American soldiers.

Officials also suppressed evidence of disunity within the Allied camp, such as postwar photographs of the bloody interior of the apartment of an English officer whom two Americans had beaten.

The government censored all of the numerous photographs, often gory, of victims of G.I. rapes and murders. G.I. criminals as well as G.I. crimes remained largely out of sight, although Life and others published photographs that recorded crimes committed in areas not subject to military censorship. Censorship of G.I. crimes helped minimize attention to potential disruptions within American society related to the war effort.

Race: Race was the touchiest issue. Wartime imagery urged blacks and whites to work harmoniously together in the common cause, but reassured the white majority that this did not require violations of widely accepted social norms.

Propaganda took care of the first task, censorship the second. In 1943, after several newspapers ran pictures of African American G.I's dancing with English women, the Army hastily ordered censors to stop all photographs showing blacks mixing socially with white women.

For part of the war the army also refused to release pictures showing wounded members of the black 92nd Division or burials of soldiers from that unit because of the "tendency on part of Negro press to unduly emphasize" its achievements.

During the 1943 Detroit riots All-American News, a company that made newsreels for theaters with predominantly black clientele, had sent cameramen to Detroit ... The company never ran a story on the Detroit riots.

Images of Death: The government initially censored all photographs of Americans who had died in battle, then began releasing such photographs when Allied successes caused officials to be more concerned that the public would take victory for granted than that they would become demoralized.

Throughout the war officials censored photographs of the American dead that showed decapitation, dismemberment, and limbs twisted or frozen into unnatural positions ... because horrific pictures of the American dead seemed unlikely to help the government's ongoing recruiting efforts.

But the army also censored such images because they did not fit seamlessly into a master narrative emphasizing the "we have everything under control" quality of the American war effort. This led the army not only to censor photographs of a field littered with bits of human flesh after the explosion of an ammunition truck, but also photographs of a soldier who fell to his death from a window, and numerous others documenting G.I. suicides ... photographs and film footage from combat areas most always were presented in a way that reassured readers and viewers that the American war effort was rational not only in its overall goals, but in all of its details, including the mission assigned every soldier.

In September of 1943, Life accompanied its first photograph of Americans killed in the war George Strock's powerful, elegantly composed picture of three American soldiers lying dead on Buna Beach in New Guinea - with a full-page editorial.

The editors drew on familiar sports imagery to guide viewers' responses: "we are still aware of the relaxed self-confidence with which the leading boy ran into the sudden burst of fire almost like a halfback carrying the ball down a football field."

Such presentations, combined with censorship of photographs showing American corpses piled on top of one another or being tossed onto trucks, placed each American death into a context that made it consistent with a well-ordered life and world.

Maintaining this impression of order required the suppression of photographs that revealed incompetence, irrationality, or loss of control in the United States war effort. Photographs censored at least in part for these reasons ranged from ones that showed Americans and others killed or wounded by allied "friendly fire" or other military blunders to those that showed turkeys intended for soldiers' Thanksgiving meals strewn over the floor of an army warehouse because of careless handling.

In addition to suppressing evidence of disorder on the organizational level, the army censored photographs that might raise doubts about how completely individual American soldiers had control of their own behavior.

Without such control, how could they resist sliding into undisciplined modes of behavior attributed only to the enemy? Thus censors kept soldiers visibly suffering from severe mental stress out of sight throughout the war and after, despite their large numbers.

None of the censored photos illustrate more vividly the human inability to keep complete control over war's chaos than those of "shell shocked" soldiers screaming and flailing out at their fellow soldiers and at the horror of their situation.

The Consequences of Ignorance: Censorship decisions made fifty years ago continue to have consequences. The Smithsonian Institution, under intense pressure from Congress and veterans' organizations, recently canceled plans to include photographs of the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in its exhibition of the plane that dropped the bomb, the Enola Gay.

This is consistent with wartime censorship policies and with official practices since then. The site of the exhibition, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, never has displayed pictures of the victims of Allied bombing.

The following article was posted on the Seattle IndyMedia site...The life editors above correctly noted that 'the boy' ran into the machine gun fire
Another form of falisification is War Movies where the soldiers are all as old as John Wayne
Mature middle aged men running into nests of machine gun fire etc.
As the author of this piece, 'The Boys of Iwo Jima' points out
and as the editors of life pointed out in the piece of above
the soldiers in the war were teenagers

The Boys of Iwo
Jima

wonder why they recruit highschoolers to this day?

"They called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike
would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, "Let's go kill some Japanese" or
"Let's die for our country." He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say,
"You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers." "

Jima Each year I am hired to go to Washington DC with the eighth grade class from
Clinton, WI, where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation's
capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was
especially memorable. On the last night of our trip we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial.
This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most
famous photographs in history - that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at
the top of a rocky hill on the Island of Iwo Jima, Japan during WW II. Over one hundred
students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial.

I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, "Where are
you guys from?" I told him that we were from Wisconsin. "Hey, I'm a cheesehead too!
Come gather around, Cheeseheads, and I will tell you a story." He was there that night to
say good night to his dad, who has since passed away. He was just about to leave when
he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission
to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments
filled with history in Washington DC. But it is quite another to get the kind of insight we
received that night. When all had gathered around he reverently began to speak. Here are
his words that night.

"My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I
just wrote a book called "Flags of Our Fathers'" which is #5 on the New York Times Best
Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me. Six boys raised the
flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state
football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football
team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called "War." But it didn't turn
out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say
that to gross you out, I say that because there are generals who stand in front of this
statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo
Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old. (He pointed to the statue.)

You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's
helmet off at the moment this photo was taken, and looked in the webbing of that helmet,
you would find a photograph. A photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in their for
protection, because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima.
Boys, not old men.

The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my
hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the "old man" because he was so
old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't
say, "Let's go kill some Japanese" or "Let's die for our country." He knew he was talking
to little boys. Instead he would say, "You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your
mothers." The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona.
Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President
Truman told him, "You're a hero." He told reporters, "How can I feel like a hero when 250
of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?" So you take your
class at school. 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything
together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive.
That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face
down at the age of 32, ten years after this picture was taken.

The next guy going around the statue is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky. A
fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, "Yeah you know, we took
two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the
stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epson salts. Those cows crapped
all night." Yes he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19.
When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General
Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear
her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue is my dad, John Bradley from
Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give
interviews. When Walter Kronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were
trained as little kids to say, "No, I'm sorry sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing.
No, there is no phone there sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back." My dad never
fished or even went to Canada. Usually he was sitting there right at the table eating his
Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn't want to
talk to the press. You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these
guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and a monument.

My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo
Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they
writhed and screamed in pain. When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that
my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, "I
want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come
back. DID not come back." So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on
Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7000 boys died on Iwo Jima in
the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here.
Thank you for your time." Suddenly the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with
a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a
son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most
people would believe, but a hero none the less
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