The Pacific Theater

The Pacific war was fought across an ocean a third of the earth's surface, island by island. It began for American ground troops at Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942, and ended at Okinawa in June 1945; in between came Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Peleliu and Iwo Jima.

Each landing followed the same script. Days of naval and air bombardment, then the landing craft, then men wading or walking across an open beach toward a defended interior. The Japanese garrisons rarely surrendered. On Tarawa, of some 4,700 defenders, a handful were taken alive.

The painting shows the moment after the landing: a column of infantry moving off the beach past a beached landing craft, the fleet lying offshore and a volcanic peak smoking on the skyline. The beach is quiet. The island beyond it was never quiet for long.

The column moves right to left along the tideline, nine men in step, rifles slung, past a landing craft with its ramp already up. Splintered stumps and debris fill the foreground — the aftermath of the bombardment — and the ground is painted in cracked, mud-toned strokes. Above, a broad sky of gray and gold takes up half the picture. The volcanic peak on the horizon, capped with a plume, is both the destination and the threat.