Tom Lea: Brushstrokes from the Frontlines of WWII

During the summer of 1941, Tom Lea received a telegraphed invitation from the editorial staff of LIFE magazine asking him to create portraits of U.S. troops preparing for World War II. Armed with his paint box, pencils, and sketchbook, Lea boarded a U.S. Navy destroyer in the North Atlantic and recorded what he saw before the U.S. officially entered the war. When his ship refueled at Argentia Bay, he learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan.

“And there it was . . . the looming shape of the flagship USS Prairie bow on, with three destroyers tied at her side. A sudden image of the mother ship anchored in that forlorn place with three of her iron children, in from the sea, at rest by her side.”

Admiral Bristol served as the first commander of the Support Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. He helped escort convoys across the submarine-infested waters of the North Atlantic, where German wolfpacks were sinking ships carrying aid to Britain. After America entered World War II, he continued in this critical role until his death.

“I used to think that the manly thing was to join the service and get a gun, believing that there might be a certain reservation, even a little cowardice, in using merely a paintbrush. I’ve changed my mind about painting a war at firsthand. . . . There is nothing, in the way of personal honor, to be ashamed of in going to war armed with nothing heavier than a sketchbook and a receptive spirit. If that’s the way I can be most useful, that’s what I want to do.”

By 1942, Tom Lea was aboard the USS Hornet in the South Pacific during the Guadalcanal campaign. US forces were barely holding on, with Hornet and Wasp being the only aircraft carriers left in the Pacific Ocean. Tom was lifted off soon before the Hornet was sunk, making his drawings the only visual records of the carrier’s final months.

“I’ll never forget how big the Hornet looked that bright August afternoon when I saw her for the first time.”

(Tom Lea, 1942)

Major General James Doolittle led the first aerial raid on Japan with sixteen B-25 bombers from the USS Hornet.

During Lea’s time aboard the Hornet, he lived among the crew of three thousand and made friends from stem to stern, including Lt. A. C. Emerson, one of the ship’s most respected pilots.

“I thought I understood the cost of his sacrifice when he said, ‘The only way to fight this war was to get in there, and the hell with thinking about anything else.’”

(Tom Lea, 1943)

“We see our first fighters returning, coming in high in the blue haze. They circle and form a landing circle and begin to come in.” (Tom Lea, 1942)

“We had been at sea in Hornet for 29 days and defensively patrolling sea routes to Guadalcanal for more than two weeks on the afternoon we made rendezvous with Wasp.”

(Tom Lea, 1942)

On September 15, 1942, one day after that rendezvous, the USS Wasp was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Lea watched it explode and sink from the signal bridge of the Hornet.

“I found something in my hands. I did have a stub pencil. I had a dog-eared fliers’ chart of the Solomons folded in my shirt pocket. On the back of the sweat-damp chart, with a shaky hand, I made a sketch-diagram of Wasp dying and wrote notations about the light and the color. As if I might ‘forget.’”

(Tom Lea, 1968)

“Through the glass I could see the minute figures of men moving on the after part of the listing flight deck. Little black dots were going down lines over the fantail into the sea, abandoning ship.”

(Tom Lea, 1968)

Four days after Lea was lifted off the Hornet, the crew members were fighting for their lives at the Battle of Santa Cruz. The Hornet met its end in that battle, resulting in the death or severe wounding of all men onboard.

”‘Something has happened to your ship. We lost Hornet last night.’ Chester W. Nimitz had tears in his eyes. I saw them. There in his office I learned of Hornet’s valiant death. I cried later.”

(Tom Lea, 1968)

Lea’s drawings from his time aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet had to be cleared by Navy intelligence, so some bear initialed stamps declaring “Passed by Naval Censor.”

Following his time on the Hornet, Lea was eager to

explore the different Allied fronts across the world.

This journey eventually led him to China, where LIFE

magazine urged Lea paint pictures unrelated to war,

as well as several portraits. These images were meant

to portray the humanity and grandeur of China as Lea

experienced it.

Lea arrived in Chungking at the height of the power struggles between the ruling Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist Party, as well as ongoing efforts to unite various factions to confront the Japanese invasion.

“China doesn’t look like anywhere else in the world. It is infinitely picturesque, and much more beautiful than I expected, out here in the rice paddies and terraced hills.” (Tom Lea, 1943)

Lea was one of few given the opportunity to paint Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Republic of China during WWII, and his wife, Madam Chiang Kai-shek.

“I didn’t have enough time with Generalissimo, but I had enough to know who he was and how he was, and to depict him as a reporter would, not as a war propagandist.” (Tom Lea, 1944)

In September 1944, Lea landed on Peleliu, a small island

in the South Pacific, with the First Marine Division. He

remained on the island during the first thirty-two hours

of the U.S. assault on the Japanese, memorizing what he

saw as he tried to survive one of the bloodiest battles of

WWII. Afterward, from a naval vessel offshore, he

recorded the burden of his memory in a sketchbook with

shaking hands.

“Then I ran—to the right—slanting up the beach for cover, half bent over. Off balance, I fell flat on my face just as I heard the whishhh of a mortar I knew was too close.” (Tom Lea, 1945)

The Price hung outside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon to remind them of the cost of war.

“Lying there in terror looking longingly up the slopes to better cover, I saw a wounded man near me, staggering in the direction of the LVTs. His face was half bloody pulp, and the mangled shreds of what was left of an arm hung down like a stick, as he bent over in his stumbling, shock-crazy walk. The half of his face that was still human had the most terrifying look of abject patience I have ever seen. He fell behind me, in a red puddle on the white sand.”

(Tom Lea, 1945)

“The padre stood by with two canteens and a Bible, helping. He was deeply and visibly moved by the patient suffering and death. He looked very lonely, very close to God, as he bent over the shattered men so far from home.”

(Tom Lea, 1945)

“I noticed a tattered marine standing quietly by a corpsman, staring stiffly at nothing. His mind had crumbled in battle, his jaw hung, and his eyes were like two black empty holes in his head.” (Tom Lea, 1945)

Lea’s eyewitness accounts vividly captured the initial beach landing and battle at Peleliu, leaving a lasting impression on viewers. The Price and That 2,000 Yard Stare became his most renowned works. When Lea reached El Paso in October 1944, the Marines were still

fighting on Peleliu.

“. . . I guess there has never been any emotion in my life that surpassed the assault on Peleliu. I think people, in seeing those pictures, see the horror of war. And you

know, actually, I wasn’t thinking of the horror of war. I was thinking of the heroism of the men that performed under those circumstances and survived. I really thought of heroism rather than war.” (Tom Lea, 1993)

Lea could not rest at home until he had recorded what

U.S. Marines experienced on Peleliu. At intervals, he

began a portrait of his wife, based on a photograph

taken in their backyard at home that he carried

throughout the war.

“I had a snapshot of Sarah which I carried in my wallet during the whole war. It was agood picture of her, taken in the sunlight in our back yard….I looked at it, homesick, all over the world. When the war was over, the first painting I began was a full-length life size portrait of Sarah in the same dress, the same pose, the same light as the little snapshot. It was a painter’s votive offering made in the gladness of being home . . .”

(Tom Lea, 1945)

“Yeah, the best part of war is getting home. When I got home I made a complete drawing, full-size, of Sarah and it was on brown paper. I had the painting started within six months after my return from the war but I didn’t finish it until about two years later.

(Tom Lea, 1944)

This exhibition is made possible by the generosity of The Summerlee Foundation, Texas Historical Foundation, Humanities Texas, and Mr. and Mrs. James H. Clement, Jr.