Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/05/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]USA TEXAS CORPUS CHRISTI 12 May 2006 >From the Associated Press: While a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, Terence Sumner Kirk built a pinhole camera to make a photographic record of his starving fellow POWs. He said he wanted to document the horrors he and his fellow Marines endured during four years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He used smuggled photo supplies to make that record--despite the threat of summary execution if his captors found out. He then wrapped the photos in oil cloth and buried them in a latrine. Kirk kept his secret for 38 years after signing a War Department document prohibiting prisoners held by the Japanese from telling their stories without government permission. But, in 1983, Kirk released his memoirs and prison photos in his book ?The Secret Camera.? Kirk died on Wednesday at his home in Burleson, Texas, south of Fort Worth. He was 89.