Bonnie Henry: Duo took shots in Korean War, all with cameras

Arizona Daily Star ^ | 01/07/04 | Bonnie Henry

[SandRat]

They photographed generals and presidents. They also shot street scenes of ordinary Koreans doing their laundry and getting haircuts.

It was 1953 and Roy Behrens and Dom Emanuele were serving as photographers at the tail end of the Korean War.

"We photographed everything you can imagine," says Behrens, 74, who now lives in Tucson.

Tucked into his portfolio of Korean civilians and American generals are shots of American actress Terry Moore in an ermine bathing suit, there for a USO show.

Not all the assignments were so pleasant.

With peace declared, Behrens shot photos of American bodies being delivered from the former enemy across the Freedom Bridge, clad in paper bags. "We returned theirs in rubber bags," he adds. Both Behrens and Emanuele served for a time with the 4th Signal Battalion, X Corps, where they photographed such notables as South Korean President Syngman Rhee and future general William Westmoreland.

A half-century later, the two men recently reconnected on the Internet.

After several failed attempts over the years to find former photogs with the 4th Signal Battalion, Behrens got a reply from Emanuele in November. For added confirmation, Behrens also sent along a group shot of the men in the photo lab. There, crouched in the lower left corner, was Emanuele.

"I was surprised to make contact," says Emanuele, 74, from his home in Pennsylvania.

He got to Korea first, arriving on New Year's Day, 1953. Before long, he was serving as a combat aerial photographer, completing 16 missions when the armistice was signed in late July of 1953.

Behrens arrived in early September. Although a truce had been declared, "Nobody believed it would hold," he says.

"They issued us a weapon we had to sleep with the first three months. There was gunfire all night long."

Within a few days he hooked up with the 4th Signal Battalion stationed right next to the demilitarized zone known as the 38th Parallel.

At first he toiled in its darkroom and photo lab. But soon he was shooting everything from award ceremonies to the horizon of North Korea, for maps.

"I had a camera in one hand, a wooden tripod in the other," says Behrens, who had to follow in the exact footsteps of his guide. "There were mines on both sides."

After eight months, he was sent to Seoul, where he served out the remainder of his 13-month tour. "It was the same sort of duties," says Behrens, who also got to photograph Seoul street life.

In October of '54, Behrens went back to his hometown of Springfield, Ill., and his old studio photography job.

Meanwhile, Emanuele rotated back to the States after 16 months, spending the rest of his service as a photo instructor at Fort Monmouth, N.J.

In the spring of '55, he returned home to Greensburg, Pa., where he joined with three other brothers, running a home improvement and construction business for 45 years.

Behrens and his family moved to Tucson in 1986. "The first year here, I did not pick up a camera," says Behrens, who now shoots strictly for pleasure.

The same holds true for Emanuele, who for 24 years free-lanced as a news photographer for a Pittsburgh television station.

Neither man has been back to Korea. "Once is enough," says Emanuele.

Postscript: A few days ago, Behrens reconnected with yet another photog from his outfit, William B. Franklin, 77, a retired policeman who now lives in St. Louis.

"We talked for 45 minutes on the phone," says Behrens. "I was tickled to death."

[Wolverine]

Every newshead shills for the demorats everyday...they are not returning their salaries!