Carl Mydans, 97; his enduring images helped define 20th centuryPage 2 of 2 -- Sent in 1941 to cover the war in China, Mr. Mydans stopped at Pearl Harbor to photograph the US fleet, an essay that dominated one issue of Life. He and his wife, staying behind in Manila when US forces and other correspondents left, were taken prisoner by Japanese invaders.
After 22 months as POWs in Manila and later in Shanghai, the couple were repatriated in a 1943 prisoner of war exchange. Mr. Mydans soon returned to the war, covering Allied invasions in Italy and France, and later the recapture of the Philippines -- including the liberation of the Santo Tomas camp, where he had been a prisoner. In another enduring image, Mr. Mydans captured the Japanese surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. He attained a clear position atop a 40mm gun turret that gave him a perfect view of the Japanese foreign minister, Shigemitsu Mamoru. He said he felt an unexpected surge of compassion as the defeated official signed the surrender. "I watched Shigemitsu limp forward, his wooden leg tapping out his progress in the silence," he told the Christian Science Monitor in 1995. "He was helped by two servicemen to a chair. He leaned on his cane, took off his top hat, and stripped off his gloves, and for an instant seemed confused. "As I watched this man, at what for him must have been a terrible moment, I suddenly felt all my pent-up wartime anger drain away, and compassion filled my heart." Mr. Mydans became Life's Tokyo bureau chief, covering the 1948 earthquake in Fukui, which took more than 1,500 lives. He photographed a Japanese man carrying his dead wife over his shoulders as he whispers, "too late." His photo of a building leaning like the tower of Pisa became the disaster's signature image. Among his memorable photos of the turbulent 1960s was one taken on Nov. 22, 1963, showing homebound rail commuters reading newspapers with headlines such as, "President Shot Dead." Mr. Mydans and his wife co-wrote "The Violent Peace," about post-World War II conflicts. Mr. Mydans leaves a son, Seth, a New York Times correspondent; a daughter, Shelley of Sacramento, and two grandchildren. Shelley Smith Mydans died two years ago. Plans for a memorial were incomplete.
Material from the © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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