Operation Detachement

Two-part radio documentary, interactive web documentary, traveling photo exhibition and a book

“A father even killed his own baby. It was better to kill his own son, than to surrender to the Americans, out of honor.”

How can we remember what we have never seen?

In 2012, photographer Marianne Ingleby inherits the war archive of her American grandfather Bruce Elkus, who was an army photographer for the United States Army Signal Corps. Private First Class Elkus was on Iwo Jima straight after that iconic moment and documented, amongst other things, the job of the 147th regiment. This little-known army regiment had ‘the grizzly task of mopping up’ after the Battle of Iwo Jima, which was one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific. Elkus’s images range from the factual documentation of military logistics to graphic atrocities of war, comradery between American soldiers and uncensored images of Japanese prisoners of war and prostitutes on the mainland. The images show a very different reality than the iconic image and tell a new and multifaceted story.

On February 23rd, 2020, it will be 75 years ago that the picture of the Raising of the Flag on Iwo Jima was taken. It was to become one of the most iconic images of all time. Dynamic, heroic and full of symbolism: the good had prevailed in the battle against evil. But for some, the image is also sterile. The realities of war that preceded it, and were yet to follow, are not depicted.

 MULTIMEDIA

“Operation Detachment” is a multimedia project that consists of a podcast, a traveling photo exhibition, an online documentary and a book. The project will be launched in The Netherlands at the end of February 2020. We are looking for media partners to bring the story to the USA. 

Podcast

The Dutch version of the podcast will be 2 x 30 minutes and is broadcasted by Dutch Public Radio (OVT/ Radio1), it is possible to listen to the dutch version here. It’s an intimate and personal quest, in which Marianne unravels the war experiences of her grandfather in an attempt to come closer to him. She speaks with her reserved mother and other family members, to try and understand why he never spoke of his wartime experiences with his family. With the archive in her suitcase, she also travels to the US to speak with 95-year-old veterans who share the same experience and experts who can tell more about the significance of the archive. In part two, she strives to find out how the Japanese perceive her grandfather’s archive and what role the war still has in its current society. She engages with a granddaughter of a Japanese Iwo Jima veteran who is also searching for more information. Together they meet experts and veterans and try to go to the inaccessible island of Iwo Jima to revive the memory of their grandfathers.

Web documentary

The web documentary combines audio from the podcast with images from Elkus’ archive, portraits of war survivors today and film material from the National Archives. The visuals are leading, audio and text are supportive. The audio (snippets of interviews of veterans combined with modern soundscapes and archival sound) make the images more alive and add an emotional layer to it. Text is used for more context (for example in the form of quotes from historical experts) or to raise broader questions about how we perceive war (for example in the form of quotes from Susan Sonntag and other great thinkers).