Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Image:The Yanks mop up on Bougainville.jpg

The Yanks mop up on Bougainville

File:The Yanks mop up on Bougainville.jpg

United States Army troops hunt Japanese infiltrators on Bougainville shortly after the large Imperial Japanese Army offensive of March 9 – 17, 1944.

File:Bougainville WW2-141.jpg

Original from archives.gov

Articles

Bougainville campaign, M4 Sherman

Creator

US Government

Reason

One of the only pictures from the Pacific War that clearly shows actual combat operations in the jungles of the South Pacific islands. The soldiers involved are also dramatically silhouetted by the sun shining down through the jungle canopy. The action captured includes one soldier sprinting for cover as another carefully fires his rifle at a target unseen by the viewer.

Nominated by

Cla68 07:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. Cla68 07:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
• Support. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:43, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Neutral Are there really very few pictures of the pacific war? There seems to be plenty of video footage. And the picture its self is unremarkable with not great composition and very dark shadows. -Fcb981 14:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Fair enough, Given your considerable knowlage on the subject I will trust that you nominated a picture that impressed you and I will trust that you can evalute the rareity better than I can. Thanks -Fcb981 03:45, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

The South Pacific theater (South West Pacific theatre of World War II, Solomon Islands campaign) was way less photographed than the Central Pacific campaigns. And the pictures that do exist are mainly posed, rear-area, airfield personnel, or after-battle shots. Jungle warfare is apparently difficult to photograph or film and the few military and media photographers who were there appear to have been reluctant to expose themselves to enemy fire. I don't agree with you that the picture is unremarkable. I think it captures the drama of close quarters combat very well. The troops in the picture are using the tank as "rolling cover" because the human beings that they are hunting are, judging by the angle of the standing rifleman, probably 50 yards away or less. You can see how the three soldiers are coordinating their cover-and-fire tactics. One covers from a ground position while the other two take turns firing from either side of the tank and then quickly retreat back into cover. I think that the act of men hunting other men is very dramatic as well as being relatively rarely photographed and I think this photo captures the drama of it in a place where a lot of intense combat took place and a lot of people died, but where there isn't much photographic documentation of what actually occurred. Cla68 23:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• weak support I actually rather like this image, composition included, there is a lot of action and the level of activity / detail pulls you in. The inky shadows are unfortunate though. Debivort 23:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I love this photo. The quality may not be the best, but the composition is dramatic (and I don't think the inky shadows detract too much, in any event). It really captures how terrifying this sort of battle was, and how brave the men doing it were. Calliopejen1 04:49, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Great composition and the quality may be excused due to its historical value. Mgiganteus1 09:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
• Support Being historical, artistic yet informative, all in a rare shot make this one impossible to oppose. J Are you green? 19:52, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Wonderful picture Booksworm Talk to me! 17:28, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
• Support Whoa. ^8thstar 14:41, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose nominated edit The original is in a bad condition but might be fixable with a good edit. This one is for one not cleaned up and for two blows the highlights even more than the original. I might support a proper edit or a better version if someone can find one. ~ trialsanderrors 06:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

There is another version at Defenselink that shows better detail in the foreground and the tank in the picture. That version, however, cuts off the top of the image thereby reducing the dramatic effect of the sun's rays filtering through the foliage so I chose not to use that version. I don't know of any other versions better than the one I originally listed here. Cla68 07:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

The unitedstatesveterans.com version I link to shows that the foliage in the background and the tank are in fact not blown out. Sadly the link through leads nowhere, but it means there should be a better version available (which also shows another soldier on the right). ~ trialsanderrors 07:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

The linked version you were looking for is here, thanks to the Internet archive. It's the very same version that is also actually in archives.gov (ID 531183, "Use War and Conflict Number 1185 when ordering a reproduction or requesting information about this image.", NAIL Control Number: NWDNS-111-SC-189099; search at the ARC for "bougainville" to find it, deep-linking doesn't work). But the online version still isn't really large enough. It's also available at the Library of Congress, but only as a thumbnail. If someone could order it at ARC, I'm sure a better scan could be produced. Lupo 12:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. ARC version is too light (and the online version too small), but both versions here are way too dark. Lupo 12:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • However, I think the the 3000×2325px version from DVIC (description) is perfectly fine. They did not crop anything away, it's rather the two versions shown in this nomination that are cropped. The two shown here are just inferior. Lupo 15:30, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh, and please give this poor image a better name. "The Yanks mop up at Bougainville" is so unencyclopedic (even if DVIC and ARC use it), and "Bougainville_WWII_141" is scarcely better. Lupo 15:40, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I'll support the DVIC version if you upload it. Also, a for deep research, and of course you can give the image whichever name you think is most encyclopedic. ~ trialsanderrors 20:10, 14 May 2007 (UTC)