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Marine Airman
Kerr
Eby #40
Charcoal, 1944
Gift of Abbot Laboratories
88-159-DX
A Marine fighter pilot stands by his plane, having just returned
from lending air support to men of the assault waves at Cape Gloucester,
New Britain. He and many like him showed amazing courage and grim
determination in strafing the Japanese while their buddies fought
doggedly on the beach.
Night Shift
Kerr
Eby #26
Charcoal, 1944
Gift of Abbot Laboratories
88-159-DJ
Aircrewmen work by floodlights as they
repair a plane during the battle of Cape Gloucester on New Britain.
Stark white against the ebon jungle night, they work with studied
haste, their practiced hands sure and steady among the complex
works of the plane engine.
Last
Rights For the Sergeant
Kerr
Eby #41
Charcoal, 1944
Gift of Abbot Laboratories
88-159-DY
Bowed in grief which breaks through their traditional stoicism,
Marines mourn the passing of their beloved sergeant, buried not
far from where he fell in jungle combat. Numbers of humble graves
like his line the long road toward Pacific victory.
Kerr Eby was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1889, the son of Methodist
missionaries. The family returned to their native Canada in 1893,
where he lived until his high school graduation. He then moved
to New York City to study art, first at the Pratt Institute in
Brooklyn and later at the Art Students League. One of the finest
etchers of this century, his illustrations appeared in such magazines
as Harper's, Century, Scribner's and Everybody's. In World War
I he served as a sergeant with the 40th engineers in France, and
his sketches of scenes at Belleau Wood, Chateau- Thierry, Saint-Mihiel,
and the Meuse-Argonne later formed the basis for his famous book
War, published by Yale University Press in 1936. In World
War II he was accredited as a war artist- correspondent for Abbott
Laboratories in 1943 and accompanied the Marines when they landed
at Tarawa. During the next four months he became a familiar figure
wherever the fighting was hardest in the South Pacific, including
Empress Augusta Bay and Bougainville, where he lived for three
weeks in a foxhole on the front line, rough sketching the jungle
fighting. While there, he contracted a tropical disease which
weakened his health. He returned to the United States unable to
resume his very active career. He died in 1946.
"Marines In Action" is a tribute to the valor of
the United States Marine Corps. The collection is presented by
Abbott Laboratories to the American people through gift to their
government that the pictures may be part of the permanent record
of this war.
Abbott expresses its deep gratitude to the officers and men of
the Marine Corps, without whose generous assistance the pictures
could not have been created. To Kerr Eby, who landed with the
Marines at Tarawa and accompanied them in their conquest of Bougainville
is tendered special thanks and our most sincere appreciation.
Abbott gratefully acknowledges the able direction given the project
by the art and poster section of the Navy Department's Office
of Public Relations which also handled the countless details involved.
Gratitude is likewise expressed to the Associated American Artists
for administrative work and for their unfailing cooperation and
help at every stage in the development of the program
Finally I wish to extend my personal thanks and appreciation to
the those members of the Abbott organization whose vision was
responsible for inauguration of the project and under whose guidance
it has been carried on to successful completion.
S. DeWitt Clough, President Abbott Laboratories North Chicago
Illinois, 1944.
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Collection Branch6 December 1999