| Original caption: “Dead Japanese in pillbox on Engebi Island.” He was killed either by a flamethrower or by demolitions. Extensive burns cover his body. Engebi’s defenses were called the “spider web” type to which there were many entrances. They were constructed by knocking out the heads of empty gasoline drums and making an impromptu pipeline of them, sunk into the ground and covered with earth and palm fronds. The tunnels thus constructed branched off in several directions from a central pit and the whole emplacement was usually concealed with great skill and ingenuity. If the main position was spotted and attacked the Japanese riflemen within could crawl off 50 feet or so down 1 of the corridors and emerge at an entirely different and unexpected spot from which they could get off a shot and dive down to concealment before it was possible to determine whence the fire proceeded. Every foot of ground had to be gone over with the greatest precaution and alertness before these honeycombs of death could be silenced by the literal process of elimination. The attacking Marines soon hit upon a method of destroying completely these underground defenses. When the bunker at the center of the web had been located, a member of the assault team would hurl a smoke grenade inside. Although this type of missile did no harm to the Japanese within, it released a cloud of vapor which rolled through the tunnels and escaped around the loosefitting covers of the foxholes. Once the outline of the web was known, the bunker and all its satellite positions could be shattered with demolitions. Lieutenant Wayne F. Miller (September 19, 1918 – May 22, 2013) was an American photographer born in Chicago, Illinois and lived in Orinda, California. He was assigned to Lieutenant Commander Edward Steichen’s (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) Naval Photography Unit. The new mobility enjoyed by the Naval Aviation photographers is evident in the circuit traveled by Miller in 1944. The youngest, least experienced member of the original group, he was the most determined to prove himself as a photographer. Miller managed to photograph his way around the world. In February, he covered, from the air, the Marine landings on Engebi island. In March, he sailed on the USS Saratoga to the Indian Ocean for a joint operation with Lord Louis Mountbatten’s British fleet. In August, he was in the Mediterranean, photographing air operations off the coast of southern France, and stepping ashore at Naples. There, feeling that this, too, was part of the job of photographing the war and its human consequences, he made many photographs of that city’s uprooted children wandering the streets in rags and searching for food among the rubble. By the year’s end he was back in the South Pacific, on board the USS Ticonderoga before its pilots launched the 1st strikes against Japanese-held Manila. In a letter, Steichen offered him a mixture of assessment and advice: “I think you are turning ‘em out of a quality that warms the cockles of the old man’s heart. Don’t worry about la well-known photographer)-you are headed in a warmer and more human direction-don’t be afraid to move in on close-ups-Shoot more color-that’s the only way to get national circulation…The status of the unit gets better all the time…Keep em coming-I’m betting on you — ready to give you my odds. My best to you and lots of it.” He was a member of the Magnum agency and received a Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph African American communities after the war. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1680.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.26 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 2610 x 2616 |
| Photographer | Wayne Miller |
| Photographer Title | United States Navy |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | February 17, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | Engebi |
| Country | Marshalls |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-80-G-401064 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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