Fire Stories | Stories

The violent Pacific Campaign through the camera lens of a Portuguese descendant sailor

by

Photo album of H.Mello
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )

The Japanese attack on the US naval fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, ushered in an unprecedented, brutal and barbaric type of warfare. Without contemplating violence, both sides engaged in merciless naval and land combat, which claimed the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians, including several Portuguese and Portuguese descendants. The barbarities committed by a “Japan” that had never ratified the Geneva Convention also led, in a way, to unacceptable behavior on the part of various American elements, excusing themselves with previous attitudes on the part of the Japanese.

Little is known about the personal or even the military functions of H. Mello, a Lusodescent sailor who took part in the Allied campaigns in Bougainville, Rendova, Guadalcanal and Munda in 1943 and 1944, but his photo album with a total of 115 photographs and newspaper clippings, of which we make several available without any filters or censorship, clearly demonstrates the explicit realities of an unprecedented war in the Pacific.

António Fragoeiro

U.S Marines photographed by Harold Mello during landing in Bougainville, November 1943.
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )

Sign calling for revenge for the death of 20 US soldiers at the hands of Japanese soldiers.
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )

Posing with human remains, H.Mello
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )

Christian church bell recaptured from the Japanese in Guam
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )

Stuart light tank with damaged tracks in Bougainville
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )

Wearing sunglasses, a uniform and a tropical hat, poses next to a makeshift sign that reads “Tojo ice cream company under new management”.
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )

Lockheed P-38 aircraft flyover Bougainville
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )

Indigenous civilians photographed in the Solomon Islands by H.Mello
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )

Smoke at a distance at Guadalcanal
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )

The cautious advance is interrupted by an explosion on the road
(Private collection of António Fragoeiro )




 

Fontes/ Sources:

  • Arquivos: National Archives UK, Kew (GB); Arquivo Histórico da Marinha (PT); Arquivo Histórico do MNE (PT); 
  • Sites: uboat.net; 
  • Livros: Shipping Company Losses of the second World War, Ian M. Malcolm; Lista dos Navios da Marinha Portuguesa, datas 1939 a 1945;