Closeup of War

Whether or not photographs are art, they sometimes do art's job. A show put on by the U.S. Navy--and taken by service photographers--was last week giving more than life-size proof of this fact. At New Haven's ivy-covered Yale University Art Gallery, the Navy's tremendous photographs were starting a nationwide tour.

Called Power in the Pacific, the show sets out to picture, from start to finish, what war is like as the U.S. Navy fights it. In panoramic panels, the show begins with a series of pictures of Navy ships and the everyday work & play of the men who man the ships. Soon, the day of battle approaches: an enormously enlarged panel pictures flyers being briefed below decks of a carrier while crews ready the planes. The attack unfolds in pictures of planes in formation, softening the target for the marines. There are striking photographs of pilots "sweating it out," waiting to hear the news of their fellow fighters. There are moving shots of men in pain.

The photographs--150 in all--were selected by Navy Captain Edward Steichen from among thousands taken by Coast Guard, Marine and Navy photographers. Once the highest-paid advertising photographer in the U.S., shy, hard-working Steichen was commissioned in 1942 to head a special photographic unit, coached the men who shot the film for the vivid, action-packed Fighting Lady (TIME, Jan. 22). Like Fighting Lady, the Steichen-edited Power in the Pacific is a superb example of the technical achievements of modern photography. His chief contribution is the incredible enlargements, which lost nothing in the blowing-up process. Working with a picked staff of technicians, Steichen had the negatives enlarged to Herculean proportions, capturing minute details with great clarity. Example: a huge shot of carefree, clean-cut Navy fledglings, coming from mess (see cut).

At Yale, where 1,900 V12 students are stationed, the show was a must for all trainees. To the rest of the U.S., it promised as close a secondhand view of war as most civilians are likely to get.

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