A precious trove of World War II photos lives on as a witness against war

A lone American soldier walks through the wreckage of the German city of Heilbronn in April 1945. | U.S. Army Signal Corps, National Archives

We’re not frightened enough of war.

To most of us, war is a vague concept. It’s almost fictional — something we read about in books. It’s something we see in movies, with vast armies charging across the screen while audio speakers pump out the sounds of explosions, shouts and screams.

Yet the United States is in the midst of a real war, the longest in its history, and there are threats of new wars looming. Americans are sacrificing their lives in far-off places.

On this Veterans Day, we owe it to remember them, to worry about them, to thank them.

We recently published a book about war, but it’s not a traditional war book. It’s about the waning days of World War II. Instead of using action photos, we looked at the human toll of war. Instead of presenting pictures of U.S. tanks blasting their way through Europe, we looked at pockmarked villages left in ruins. Instead of showing planes dropping bombs, we looked at civil defense workers digging through rubble.

The pictures were all taken by a small band of U.S. Army photographers. Some entered the military experienced with a camera; others had never shot pictures before. What makes this group so special is that they went into battle carrying a camera.

It was rough.

Wrote soldier-photographer William A. Avery: “I was just four calendar years older when I got out, but it seemed like a lifetime.”

Although few of these servicemen realized it, they were creating a gift for future generations. Several hundred thousands of their photographs — like those of all combat photographers — were left behind.

Their work, which includes still photos and motion picture film, have been carefully studied at the National Archives. Books and movies are filled with their imagery. But their work at the end of the war is often overlooked. Their photos of ravaged cities and the last days of concentration camps, of prisoners and desperate refugees scouring the landscape for food and shelter, are testimony against war.

Now, as we approach the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, it’s valuable to comprehend the meaning of total war — a conflict that spans countries and continents. Perhaps there is no better way to understand it than by considering these photographs. They were taken by photographers who risked their lives to run along the front line of soldiers and liberators to create this record.

Very few of these veterans are still alive. Most were at least 20 when they shipped out for service more than 75 years ago. The men who took these photographs left behind more than photos. They left behind wisdom. Many wrote short memoirs or gave interviews about their experience.

“Sometimes war has meaning and sometimes it has none,” wrote Charles E. Sumners. “However, there is one constant: those who suffer the most have nothing to gain from its outcome and had nothing to do with starting it.”

Chicago GI Edward A. Norbuth was one of the U.S. Army soldier photographers during World War II. Here he holds a Speed Graphic camera.

It is said that each generation has its own war — because we forget. Now, with these photos, we have no reason to forget.

The sacrifice of war is never fairly spread out. But in America’s modern wars, the burden has been especially unbalanced. With most of us fully insulated from war, utterly protected from its ugliness, the damage of war is in such soft focus that our country is more likely to get into wars again.

“War, for me, had always been terrifying but also abstract, involving landscapes I couldn’t imagine and people I didn’t know,” Michelle Obama wrote in “Becoming”, her recent memoir. “To view it this way, I see now, had been a luxury.”

It’s a dangerous luxury because war is not abstract.

American and British soldiers who have lost limbs watch a demonstration in March 1945 of how disabled people can use a bicycle.

Let’s confront the costs of war, and honor our vets by ensuring that fewer vets in the future need to fill the front ranks with guns or cameras.

Richard Cahan is a co-author of the new book “Aftershock: The Human Toll of War: Haunting World War Images From America’s Soldier Photographers”, along with Mark Jacob and Michael Williams.

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