One of the more unusual gems uncovered by our researchers is a letter written by American photographer Horace Bristol, which explains the background to an iconic wartime photo with a fascinating Kiwi connection.
Bristol made his name as one of the founding photographers of Life magazine, photographing Depression-era California while travelling with writer John Steinbeck, of Grapes of Wrath fame.
During World War Two, Bristol joined the US Naval Aviation photographic unit as a Lieutenant Commander and was sent to the Pacific, and one of his more striking photos became known as The Naked Gunner of Rabaul.
After the war the original print of the Naked Gunner was sold at Sotheby’s and has, over the years, taken on something of a life of its own for obvious reasons.
And for just as many years, it was assumed this Catalina gunner belonged to the US Navy – for the simple reason that the image was captured by Bristol.
However, in a 1993 letter, Bristol writes to the New Zealand Embassy in Washington to explain the background to his famous picture and to see whether anyone in the media was interested to know the Naked Gunner was actually a Kiwi.
Horace Bristol wrote: “You may ask why I should write to the New Zealand Embassy (with) these seemingly unrelated details?
“The answer is I was flying at the time with the New Zealand Air Force commanded by a Kiwi flight commander … given the supposedly sinecure job of flying a PBY on rescue missions down into Rabaul Harbour under heavy gunfire from Japanese coastal guns, to pick up pilots and crewman, fly them back to a small seaplane tender in the Solomons.
“Although I don’t recall the Flight Officer’s name, I remember very well flying with him, for he still thought he was flying a Spitfire when it was only a broken-down PBY. This resulted in what I still consider one of the most hair-raising flights of the war to me.
“At 84, I think this is a story that even after 49 years might interest some New Zealand publication…’’
So, what was the background to the story, and why was the gunner naked?
A US Marine Corps pilot had been shot down in his Corsair, and the RNZAF PBY Catalina with Horace and his camera aboard was sent to the rescue.
Bristol took an incredible sequence of photos of the rescue, which he later explained:
“…we got a call to pick up an airman who was down in the Bay.
“The Japanese were shooting at him from the island, and when they saw us, they started shooting at us. The man who was shot down was temporarily blinded, so one of our crew stripped off his clothes and jumped in to bring him aboard. He couldn’t have swum very well wearing his boots and clothes.
“As soon as we could, we took off. We weren’t waiting around for anybody to put on formal clothes. We were being shot at and wanted to get the hell out of there. The naked man got back into his position at his gun in the blister of the plane.”
Horace’s letter to the New Zealand Embassy was written shortly before his death in 1997 at the age of 89.
