On Photographer-Soldiers: Looking at Images from Wartime Myanmar

Photographic practice has been implicated in global wars since its inception. In fact, the earliest use of the camera on an international stage was carried out by Roger Fenton in 1855 to picture the consequences of the Crimean War in Europe. Almost a century later, with the onset of the Second World War, photographic technology and its role in wartime went through significant and sophisticated changes.

In 1942, when the Indian subcontinent—more specifically Burma (present day Myanmar)—became the site of military contestation between the Allied forces and the Japanese Army, a number of professional photographers were deployed on the eastern littoral of the Indian peninsula. These men with cameras played an important role in shaping war strategies for the Allies and documenting the unfolding conflict in the region.

Glenn S. Hensley was one such American serviceman who served in the 40th Photography Reconnaissance and was positioned in British India between 1943 and 1945. Along with the official images that he captured for the United States of America’s Army, Hensley produced a series of personal photographs portraying his immediate surroundings and his experience of life during the Second World War in British India and the recently separated Myanmar.

The images curated in this album offer a window into the daily lives of photographer-soldiers as they performed their duties and witnessed the changing landscape of wartime Myanmar in the aftermath of Japanese occupation that lasted from 1942 to 1945. The selection of images from 1945 recreate the moment when Allied forces moved into Burmese territory—driving out the Japanese—and surveyed the region with the help of the camera. Officers are seen setting up photography labs, conducting camera-led inspections on land and aerially, as well as turning an ethnographic eye towards mundane activities.

These images invite the viewer to engage with an often-overlooked chapter of the subcontinent’s history: the intense mobilisation of foreign military troops and the immediate experience of the Second World War in South and South-East Asia.

All images in this album are attributed to Glenn S. Hensley. Myanmar, 1945. Images courtesy of the Hensley Photo Library.

Click on the image to view the album