Blood Is Thicker Than Water: Part 8 - Tribute to Journalism, WWII

The following is a copied in full article from Life Magazine published February 23, 1942.

SPEAKING OF PICTURES ...
... JAPS CAPTURE LIFE'S
CRACK TEAM IN MANILA


Carl Mydans, a boy from Boston whose father is an oboist, and Shelley Smith, a girl from Palo Alto whose father was a professor of journalism at Stanford University, met in LIFE's editorial office a few years ago. Carl was a photographer, Shelley, a researcher. Pretty soon they got married and formed LIFE's first and most brilliant photographer-reporter team.

In three years Carl and Shelley Mydans covered 45,000 miles and four wars. In 1940 Carl took his camera to the Russo-Finnish front while Shelley sent reports in from Sweden and privately worried about Carl. Carl covered the Fall of France, joined Shelley in Lisbon . Back in the U.S., they were sent to the ominous Far East, first to China, and then to the Philippines.

The day of Pearl Harbor, the Mydans' story on the defense preparations of the Philippines arrived in New York. It was the last picture story to come from them. When the Japs took Manila Jan. 2, they also captured Carl and Shelley Mydans. Presumably they are interned in a Japanese concentration camp.

After graduating from Boston University, Carl found himself so excited by pictures that he joined the photopgrahic staff of the Resettlement Administration. When LIFE started, he joined its staff. Shelley Smith, who once wanted to be a dancer, came to New York, worked on the old Literary Digest instead. She joined LIFE's research staff and found herself quite content to be a journalist.

Carl Mydans, 34, is a chunky fellow with an amiable manner and a way of wangling himself anywhere. He always got hard photographic jobs--sandhogs in tunnels, sailors on submarines, truck drivers on cross--country runs. Shelley is 26, a slim, pretty girl with incredible patience in tracking down facts.

The last message their LIFE colleagues received from the Mydans' before the utter silence of war shut down on them, was a cablegram from Manila the day after Christmas. It read:

"Christmas morning was very quiet. Three raids kept us close to our base. We opened our presents under a tiny tree in our room, while a Filipino serenader below sang God Bless America. Manilans first choked on the words 'Merry Christmas,' but soon found the toast of the day: 'May this be the worst Christmas we ever spend.' Christmas night we can laugh because we are still free."

Luce, Henry R., ed. "Speaking of Pictures" Life Magazine 23/02/1942: 1 page.