George Strock

George Strock (July 3, 1911 – August 23, 1977) was an American photojournalist active during World War II. He is most famously known for his photograph of three American soldiers who were killed during the Battle of Buna-Gona on Buna Beach. It became the first published photograph to depict dead American troops on the battlefield during World War II.

Strock got his start as a photographer while studying photojournalism at the John C. Fremont High School in Los Angeles. to William L. and Mary R. Lippert Strock. He had a brother, Edward. Before 1925,

In 1931, at age 21, he worked alongside his brother in their father's battery business. In 1936, according to the Los Angeles city directory, he was listed as residing with his parents and brother Edward at 328 W. 102nd Ave, but his occupation was now listed as "cameraman". Strock operated an amusement pier photograph concession and a baby portrait studio. where he covered sports, movies, and politics. In 1939, he was listed as a photographer for Modern Screen magazine. He shot images of the military at Fort Dix and Pensacola Naval Air Station, as well as everyday civilian life.

He married his wife, Rose Marie, around 1937–1938, and they had two sons, George and William.

World War II coverage Private Charles Teed, a "typical draftee" in his home town. Featured on the cover of Life on March 16, 1942.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor the Time/Life bureau in Los Angeles was short-handed and needed additional photographers. Fellow Fremont High graduate and photographer Dick Pollard referred Strock, and Life began giving him assignments. When Life needed additional photographers, Strock referred Bob Landry, who suggested other graduates of Fremont High, and over the course of the war a total of 146 of Bach's students became wartime photographers.

He was assigned by Life to the Southwest Pacific Area of World War II. He covered the Battle of Buna-Gona from November 1942 to January 1943. Strock was nearly killed at least twice during his assignment on New Guinea in late 1942 and early 1943. “When I took pictures, I wanted to bring the viewer into the scene,” Mr. Strock told an interviewer. In one instance, he took a timed exposure of an apparently dead Japanese soldier in a coconut log bunker. After taking a second picture, a shot rang out from behind him.

Strock's coverage of the Battle of Buna-Gona was published by Life on February 15 and 22, 1943, within a month of the battle's conclusion on January 22. It included pictures of U.S. soldiers on the battlefield and images of dead Japanese soldiers. But images that Strock took of dead American GIs on the battlefield were not published because the U.S Office of Censorship prohibited their use.

Strock later covered the battle to capture Kwajalein Atoll and Enewetok Atoll during Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign during February 1944. and after the war continued to work for Life. Strock's images were featured on the cover of Life a number of times.

Picture of dead GIs

"Three dead Americans lie on the beach at Buna." Taken on December 31, 1942 or on January 1 or 2, 1943. This was the first photograph published in the United States that depicted American soldiers dead on the battlefield.

Date of photograph

An image of three dead U.S. servicemen lying in the sand of Buna beach was taken by George Strock on either 31 December 1942 The proof sheets for the images are titled "Buna-Gona Campaign, New Guinea, '42", indicating the images were taken during the campaign's initial phase in November and December 1942.

The editor of the Christian Science Monitor felt that the government rules to "hold back and play down American casualties" gave the American public an artificially optimistic view of the war's progress. In Australia, General Douglas MacArthur threatened to court-martial any soldier who gave a correspondent an interview without official permission. Life Washington correspondent Cal Whipple felt that Strock's photograph was needed to inject a dose of reality on the home front which he thought was growing complacent about the war effort. Whipple said, “I went from army captain to major to colonel to general, until I wound up in the office of an Assistant Secretary of the Air Corps, who decided, ‘This has to go to the White House.’” Roosevelt agreed and authorized publication of Strock's image and others.

Life finally published Strock's photograph on September 20, 1943. Strock's image was the first photograph to depict American soldiers dead on the battlefield since the attack on Pearl Harbor 21 months before.

quote|...Why print this picture, anyway, of three American boys dead upon an alien shore? Is it to hurt people? To be morbid? Those are not the reasons. The reason is that words are never enough.... Well, this is the picture. And the reason we print it now is that, last week, President Roosevelt and Elmer Davis and the War Department decided that the American people ought to be able to see their own boys as they fall in battle; to come directly and without words into the presence of their own dead...

This is the reality that lies behind the names that come to rest at last on monuments in the leafy squares of busy American towns. The camera doesn’t show America and yet here on the beach is America, three parts of a hundred and thirty million parts, three fragments of that life we call American life: three units of freedom. So that it is not just these boys who have fallen here, it is freedom that has fallen. It is our task to cause it to rise again...."

Reception The impact of images like Strock's was mixed. The image provoked considerable controversy. Some readers attacked Life for exposing the public to more information about the war than they were prepared for, or for engaging in "morbid sensationalism." Strock's photograph has been described as one of the "most famous and influential photographs ever taken in any war." It became a classic image of war photography.

Post-war In 1955 Strock's photograph of a couple courting in a crowded, overheated bar was selected by Edward Steichen for the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Family of Man, that was seen by 9 million visitors.

Strock died in Los Angeles on August 23, 1977.