Visions of Infamy-Pearl Harbor Remembered
December 2001
NMUSN-5173: Visions of Infamy Exhibit, December 2001. Artist Tom Freeman gives remarks during the opening of the exhibit at the Navy Museum (now National Museum of the U.S. Navy), Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph Collection.
In December 2001, the Navy Museum (now National Museum of the U.S. Navy) opened the exhibit by artist Tom W. Freeman entitled Visions of Infamy. The artwork focused on the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Photographs from the Naval Historical Center (now Naval History and Heritage Command) were also on exhibit for a historical perspective. Invited to the opening were Mr. Bryant Castellow and his sister, Mrs. Patricia Castellow Cook, subjects painted as children in one of the artworks on display. The collective artwork was also published a few years earlier in Freeman’s book Pearl Harbor Recalled: New Images of the Day of Infamy.
NMUSN-5174: Visions of Infamy Exhibit, December 2001. Artist Tom Freeman gives remarks during the opening of the exhibit. To his right is Mr. Bryant Costellow, a subject of one of his paintings at the Navy Museum (now National Museum of the U.S. Navy), Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph Collection.
NMUSN-5175: Visions of Infamy Exhibit, December 2001. Dr. William Dudley, Director of the Naval Historical Center, gives remarks during the exhibit’s opening ceremony at the Navy Museum (now National Museum of the U.S. Navy), Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph Collection.
NMUSN-5176: Visions of Infamy Exhibit, December 2001. Artist Tom Freeman shakes the hand of Mr. Bryant Costellow, a subject of one of his paintings at the Navy Museum (now National Museum of the U.S. Navy), Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph Collection.
Mr. Bryant Castellow made some comments during the opening.
My father, Captain William F. Castellow, was stationed in Hawaii with the 21st Infantry Division as an Army Doctor. – I was only 4. We lived across the street (from Wheeler Field). Mother heard the planes. The long hall went down the middle of the house. She opened the window and looked out and saw them. She said, "Frank, here comes the California National Guard. They got orange on their wings." Dad knew what was happening, so he put myself and my little brother... under the bed. Mother was 8-months pregnant with my sister and wouldn't fit under the bed. Dad gave her a pistol and told her to shoot us all before being captured. Cause he'd heard stories, I guess, of the Japanese treatment in the Philippines. Mother decided that if we were going to get captured she couldn't shoot us. Decided if we were going to get captured we might as well get fed, so she went into the kitchen and fixed breakfast and fed us under the bed. – The unit moved out and Daddy established a hospital in a cave down close to the beach. The Army came by with a school bus and picked up the dependents and took us to a safer location up in the hills to a Catholic school. The bus got stalled in traffic close to Pearl Harbor. We sat there about 4 hours watching the ships burn. When we got to the school there was no food so the Army brought in half a beef but there was nothing to cook it with. My mother's uncle was a missionary and he came and picked us up and took us to his house. He had food because there had been a dock strike and he stocked his attic with canned food, canned milk, and so forth. My little sister was born there on January 20th. We returned to the states, I think in March. – Father survived the war. Was with McArthur for a short time.
NMUSN-5177: Visions of Infamy Exhibit, December 2001. Artist Tom Freeman talks to Fox DC 5 about his new exhibit at the Navy Museum (now National Museum of the U.S. Navy), Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph Collection.
NMUSN-5178: Visions of Infamy Exhibit, December 2001. Patricia Castellow Cook talks to Fox DC 5 about the new exhibit at the Navy Museum (now National Museum of the U.S. Navy), Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. Cook was a subject of one of Tom Freeman’s paintings on display for the exhibit. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph Collection.
After the exhibit presentations, Mr. Freeman presented Mr. Alfred Johnson, Sr., a U.S. Army Korean War veteran, with replacement medals of the ones he lost in a fire 40 years ago.
NMUSN-5179: Visions of Infamy Exhibit, December 2001. Artist Tom Freeman presented Mr. Alfred Johnson, Sr., a U.S. Army Korean War veteran, with replacement medals of the ones he lost in a fire 40 years ago. This presentation was during the opening of the exhibit at the Navy Museum (now National Museum of the U.S. Navy), Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph Collection.
NMUSN-5180: Visions of Infamy Exhibit, December 2001. Artist Tom Freeman signs a copy of his book Pearl Harbor Recalled: New Images of the Day of Infamy in-front of the Dive! Dive! Dive! submarine exhibit at the Navy Museum (now National Museum of the U.S. Navy), Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph Collection.
A native of Pontiac, Michigan, Tom W. Freeman was born in 1952 and relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, in his youth. Following service in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and the U.S. Army, he began painting to wide acclaim. Freeman's artwork was on numerous magazine covers for various magazines including the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings. Due to his thorough research for his paintings, they garnered wide acclaim. His artwork has been on display in the White House, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, along with many other national and international museums and organizations. Freeman died in 2015.
