14-030 garand Picture of the Day - Marines Korea

[Mark in Rochester]

Life photographer Carl Mydans with Marines.

Location:Korea (South)

Date taken:September 1950

Photographer:Carl Mydans

Information

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[Bob Seijas]

Sep 1950, the Inchon invasion and the breakout from the Pusan perimeter that turned the tide and defeated the NK -- historic, and guys like this did it!

[CINDERS]

Wonder if there are any old salts there from WW II in this pic I mean it would only be 5 years & 1 month after VJ day

[browningautorifle]

I was thinking that yesterday too. These guys don't look like anyone is old enough to have served 6 or more years at this point...you think?

[Paul S.]

Front row, right side, the bloke with the leather wrap boots and no leggings. He has about 10 years on the others by the looks of him.

[JerryEAL]

His helmet cover is faded more so than the others. Likely been around the block a time or two.

[browningautorifle]

Thanks guys...him excluded...I believe that's the photog, Carl Mydans. The rest is the platoon of Marines.

[Mark in Rochester]

Front row, right side, the bloke with the leather wrap boots and no leggings. He has about 10 years on the others by the looks of him.

LIFE photographer Carl Mydans (second from left) with fellow correspondents Tom Lambert (AP), Keyes Beech (Chicago Daily News) and Allen Raymond (New York Herald Tribune) in Korea, 1948.



Read more: Korea Divided: Photos From the October 1948 Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion | LIFE.com Korea Divided: Photos From the October 1948 Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion | LIFE.com

Mydans recorded photographic images of life and death throughout Europe and Asia during World War II travelling over 45,000 miles.[2] In 1941, the photographer and Shelley Mydans were the first husband and wife team on the magazine's staff.[3] Shelley and Carl were captured by the invading Japanese forces in the Philippines, and interred for nearly a year in Manila, then for another year in Shanghai, China, before they were released as part of a prisoner-of-war exchange in December 1943.[2]

Mydans was sent back to war in Europe for pivotal battles in Italy and France. By 1944, Mydans was back in the Philippines to cover MacArthur's return. Mydans snapped the moment when General Douglas MacArthur purposefully strode ashore in the Philippines in 1945,[3] The legendary officer had declared, when the Japanese came in 1942, "I shall return," and Mydans' photograph of the formidable general immortalized that claim for posterity. Some asserted that it must have been staged, but Mydans resolutely defended the photograph as entirely spontaneous, though he did admit that MacArthur was savvy about public-relations opportunities. The general had appeared in Mydans' other memorable image from that assignment, watching with other top U.S. brass as a Japanese delegation signed the official documents of surrender on an early September day in 1945. "No one I have ever known in public life had a better understanding of the drama and power of a picture," quoted Mydans as saying about MacArthur.[4]

Mydans also captured the signing of Japan's surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri.[2]


But he also photographed the war from the viewpoint of the ordinary soldier or sailor. "Resourceful and unruffled, Mr. Mydans sent back pictures of combat that even now define how some remember World War II, Korea, and other conflicts," noted the New York Times