Actual 1944 Pulitzer Prize for Photography Certificate, WWII Military Tarawa

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Actual 1944 Pulitzer Prize for Photography Certificate, WWII Military Tarawa:
$4900.00

1944 Pulitzer Prize for News Photography

THE ITEM OFFERED IS THEACTUALPULITZER PRIZE CERTIFICATE AWARDED TO ASSOCIATED PRESS COMBAT PHOTOGRAPHER FRANK FILAN FOR HIS 1943 PHOTOGRAPH OF THE BATTLE OF TARAWA.

This Pulitzer Prize is One-of-a-Kind.

There is one, and only one in existence, and this is it.

This Pulitzer Prize was awarded on June 6, 1944, D-Day. I found it forty years ago rolled up and wedged in the framing of the garage of an old rental farmhouse on my family's orchard before the house was torn down. I kept it in a tube for many years beforeI had it professionally mounted and framed. I have no reason to doubt its authenticity and I will protect the Buyer if it is not the actual, authentic Pulitzer Prize awarded (see RESCISSION below.) It is a beautiful certificate and is in very nice condition.

In their bookMoments, The Pulitzer Prize Photographs(Crown Publishers, 1978), John & Sheryle Leekley tell the background behind the photograph which won the 1944 Pulitzer Prize for News Photography:

"In the 168-year history of the United States Marine Corps, there is no victory quite as bittersweet as the taking of Tarawa. Out of the 3,000 American assault forces, only a few hundred escape death or wounds.

Tarawa is untouchable, the Japanese boast. Four thousand Japanese soldiers are sheltered underground in concrete blockhouses with walls five feet thick, reinforced by palm trees eighteen inches wide and steel rails. And, on top of it all, a ten-foot blanket of sand and coral. Themilitary brass agree that nothing but a direct hit or a 2,000-pound bomb could destroy those blockhouses. The steely Japanese must be rooted out of the earth itself.

The three-day battle begins. Preparatory shelling and bombing leave the island a litter of splintered coconut palm and shattered concrete. After this softening up, the Marines mount their amphibious assault.

They come in waves from the landing boats, one group at a time, pushing through over-the-head water onto the shallows and the beachhead. Facing them is a solid wall of enemy gunfire coming from inside the concrete pillboxes. They are walking into a bloodbath–certain death for many of the seasoned leathernecks. They keep coming, keep firing, keep dying, until at last they charge over the bodies of their buddies and wipe out the Japanese gunners.

Frank Filan, combat photographer for Associated Press, is on one of the advance landing boats off Tarawa. His boat is hit and sinking fast. Weighted down with camera equipment, he swims madly to shore through the intense spray of gunfire. He stops to help a wounded comrade who is trying to return to a landing boat several hundred yards behind. After swimming fifty yards under heavy fire, Filan realizes they will never make the boat. He persuades the injured Marine that they should push for the beach again. Sinking deep into bomb craters as they go, they finally reach the shore. But the cameras are ruined.

'The first two days I spent on Tarawa were the worst of my life. There I was, with a war going on all around my ears, and not a thing to take a picture with.' On the third day, Filan borrowed a camera from a Coast Guard photographer and pushes ahead with the diehard veterans to record the bloody realities of war.

In seventy-six hours, the Japanese garrison of 4,000 is destroyed, almost to the last man. Many are buried alive beneath the rubble. Flamethrowers leave hundreds of charred, bloated bodies as testimony on the Tarawa sands.

Not since Pickett's charge of the Civil War have American recruits been so willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. It is this unflinching heroism and willingness to die that wins the battle against a determined foe . . . who submits only in total annihilation."

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