Art of the American Soldier Art of the American Soldier - US Army ...

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Finally when War came to our country, I was allotted the unpleasant
though interesting and exciting opportunity of depicting havoc
wrought by man and machines. For this I was commissioned
Captain in the Army Air Forces to work as an official artist with the
Historical Division, in painting a record of the Air Force activities.
After completing my training at Officers Training School, Miami
Beach, I was ordered to Alaska where I was attached to the 11th Air
Force at Anchorage. From there I flew out to the Aleutian Islands,
visiting many bases on that chain; Amchitka, Adak, Umnac, etc.
Meanwhile at home in Washington, Congress passed a bill refusing
appropriations to the Army for War Records in painting. . . . I was put
on inactive duty to continue the work originally planned for me to do,
as a War Art Correspondent for Life Magazine.
It was in this capacity that I completed the Aleutian pictures.
In the spring of ’44 I flew to Prestwick, Scotland and thence
to London where I made my headquarters, as it were, for my
assignment with the 8th and 9th Air Forces. Traveling about
England visiting various airdromes, as the British call them, I
became well acquainted with the countryside and the “buzzbombs”
that were coming over in droves. When the Normandy
Invasion came about, though my orders were to stay in the
British Isles, after playing various angles, I managed to get to
the “far shore” where I painted the group of pictures at the time
of the terrific St. Lo breakthrough.
—OGDEN PLEISSNER
From his papers, Archives of American Art
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