Through his camera lens, our readers have seen the highlights of many local events, tragedies and celebrations alike. We interviewed Lewis because his story is much more than what his viewfinder shows.
By Mary Malloy
ven though he claims to have forgotten many of the details, longtime Valley Stream resident Ira Lewis seems to have a photographic memory when it comes to describing his World War II experiences as a combat photographer.
Lewis, 88, was interested in taking pictures as far back as he can remember. Born June 24, 1920, to immigrant parents –– his father was from Russia, his mother, Hungary –– he, along with an older sister, grew up in the Bronx, and attended James Monroe High School.
“I started to go to City College, but dropped out,” said Lewis. “I wandered around a bit...there were a lot of people out of work back then.”
Luckily for Lewis, the Roosevelt administration had set up work programs, and he became an assistant to a theatrical photographer who sold her photos for promotions. “I was an apprentice to her,” Lewis said. “Back then, if you wanted to be a photographer, you just had to train for it. There were no college courses.
“It was a rough time then,” Lewis remembers. “The Germans were rolling all over Europe.” And so, on Oct. 11, 1940, at age 20, he enlisted in the Army.
His love for both his country and photography took him to the Signal Corps the communications division of the armed forces. He went to Ft. Monmouth, N.J. to train (the first FM backpack radio was developed there in 1941) and then the Army War College in Washington, D.C. (The New Jersey post was renamed Ft. McNair in 1948 to honor Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, commander of the Army ground forces.) “It was an intense course,” Lewis said, “rivaling any college course they offer now.”
Lewis returned to Astoria, Queens, and was assigned to a camera crew that was set to go to England. His plans were abruptly changed, and, in early 1944, he was on his way to Pt. Morsbey, New Guinea in the South Pacific, just north of Australia. “I shipped out from San Francisco on an old Dutch freighter,” said Lewis. “It took a month to get there. It was really a ‘slow boat to China.’”
In New Guinea, Lewis first worked on V-Mail, or Victory Mail, in a photo lab. This system of delivering mail from the troops to home worked by taking photographs of large amounts of censored mail, and reducing them to thumbnail size onto reels of microfilm. The reels were then shipped to the U.S. and printed out on lightweight photo paper.
“I did that for a while, but then I wanted to get into combat,” said Lewis. “The Japanese had worked their way down as far as New Guinea, and we worked our way up to the Philippines.” Lewis was taking photos all the way up the islands, usually a step behind the most intense battles. He is not in possession of most of the photos, since, he said, they belonged to the Army. “I also had to leave some behind when I got Dengue fever. They said, ‘Drop everything and get to the hospital.’” The illness, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, is also known as “break-bone fever” or “bone-crusher disease.” “It hurt like heck,” Lewis recalled.
When they got to Manila, Lewis said, there were so many dead Japanese that the army sprayed DDT to get rid of the huge flies. “It killed the flies,” he said, “and everything else, I guess.”
Lewis was assigned to the headquarters that was organizing to invade Japan. “It was a beautiful, deep water port,” he said. “Ships were coming from all over, with soldiers being reassigned from Africa and Europe to invade Japan. Manila was the staging area.”
The February 1945 Battle for Manila led to the total devastation of the city, as one of Lewis’s photos attest. “The walled city of Manila was a tourist attraction before the war,” said Lewis. “The wall was 25 feet thick, and our forces couldn’t penetrate it. Gen. MacArthur backed up the artillery 25 miles and lobbed shells right over our heads.” Lewis shot the photograph of the bombed city the next day. “A lot of the civilians had scattered,” he said, “but we killed 5,000 to 10,000 soldiers there.” Lewis received a Bronze Star for his photography work in Manila.
The bombing of Hiroshima six months later signaled the beginning of the end of the war, and Lewis was sent home. He had served in the Army for five years.
“I walked around like a zombie for a year,” said Lewis. “Now they call it Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, but back then, there was very little help in the form of counseling.”
He freelanced as a photographer for a while, even opening up a little portrait shop in the Bronx. In 1950, he met his future wife, Carol Smiley, an English teacher, while photographing a bar mitzvah, and they married the next year. Lewis found full-time work at CBS television studios, and worked there for 35 years.
The Lewis’ had a daughter, Deborah, and moved to Valley Stream in 1957. After leaving CBS, Lewis worked as a photographer of architectural designs, and eventually as a freelancer for the Herald newspapers. His wife died in 1997. He stills lives in the same house.
Lewis and his companion, Tamar, take cruises to Europe and enjoy visiting Lewis’s family in Connecticut. “My work keeps me going,” said Lewis. “I’m active. With photography, you have to use your body and your brain.”
Does he think of how his photographs have captured an important part of history? “Well, at the time,” he said, “I was more concerned with the Japanese planes flying over my head.”
Comments about this story? MMalloy@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 202.
