If you knew or served with this Sailor and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Contact Info
Home Town Kensington, Maryland
Date of Passing Feb 14, 1976
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Lieutenant Mitchell Jamieson Combat Artist and Illustrator (1915 - 1976)
Mitchell Jamieson: One of the country’s foremost watercolor artists, Jamieson was born in Kensington, Maryland, attended Central High School,. He graduated the Abbott School of Fine and Commercial Arts and the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. In the 1930s, he traveled to Key West and the Virgin Islands to paint under the Treasury Department's Art Project, and received commissions to paint murals for post offices in Upper Marlboro and Laurel, Maryland; Willard, Ohio; and at the Interior Building in Washington, D.C.
Upon the onset of World War II, Jamieson was, once again, commissioned to paint; however, this time, he was requested to paint defense activities. Jamieson completed such works at the Glenn L. Martin Aviation Plant near Baltimore, Maryland. Thereafter, he was commissioned an Ensign with the U. S. Naval Reserve, and went on to matriculate at the Indoctrination School in Newport, Rhode Island.
He began his duty in 1942 as an official combat artist where he was assigned to serve in North Africa, there he would continue to graphically depict war scenes, especially that of the U. S. Navy.
He depicted the North African campaigns, invasion of Sicily, and the invasion at Normandy, were Lieutenant Jamieson crossed the channel on D-Day on the deck of an LST and went ashore with one of the first demolition units. He was also at the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Japanese surrender on board the U.S.S. Missouri. Jamieson was awarded the Bronze Star by the U.S. Navy for his work. His combat paintings were reproduced extensively in Life, and Fortune magazine. Jamieson's works have also been represented at the Phillips Memorial Gallery, are in collections at the White House, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Seattle Art Museum.
Jamieson said of his Navy combat art experience “I have confined my paintings to what I have experienced and know to be strictly true, at the same time having to adapt my way of working to the pressure of time and swift-moving events. Yet anything that is worthwhile or that has the bite of reality in the work produced under these circumstances probably derives from a constant effort to share as fully as possible in the lives and experiences of others”.
Jamieson documented the surrender of Japan, Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945, on board USS Missouri (BB-63) during the surrender ceremonies. After a brief stay with occupation forces he returned home in late September to his private practice.
In addition to his renderings for NASA of Apollo recoveries, Jamieson covered Mercury missions as well as a Saturn launch. Jamieson volunteered as a civilian artist for the U.S. Army in Vietnam. This effort took an enormous toll from which he was not to recover. In 1976 he took his own life.
Jamieson was twice awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Award of Merit by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Other Comments:
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Iwo Jima Operation
From Month/Year
February / 1945
To Month/Year
March / 1945
Description The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945), or Operation Detachment, was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Empire. The American invasion had the goal of capturing the entire island, including its three airfields (including South Field and Central Field), to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands. This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II.
After the heavy losses incurred in the battle, the strategic value of the island became controversial. It was useless to the U.S. Army as a staging base and useless to the U.S. Navy as a fleet base. However, Navy SEABEES rebuilt the landing strips, which were used as emergency landing strips for USAAF B-29s.
The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and 18 km (11 mi) of underground tunnels. The Americans on the ground were supported by extensive naval artillery and complete air supremacy over Iwo Jima from the beginning of the battle by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators.
Iwo Jima was the only battle by the U.S. Marine Corps in which the Japanese combat deaths were thrice those of the Americans throughout the battle. Of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner, some of whom were captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled. The majority of the remainder were killed in action, although it has been estimated that as many as 3,000 continued to resist within the various cave systems for many days afterwards, eventually succumbing to their injuries or surrendering weeks later.
Despite the bloody fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the Japanese defeat was assured from the start. Overwhelming American superiority in arms and numbers as well as complete control of air power — coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement — permitted no plausible circumstance in which the Americans could have lost the battle.
The battle was immortalized by Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of the 166 m (545 ft) Mount Suribachi by five U.S. Marines and one U.S. Navy battlefield Hospital Corpsman. The photograph records the second flag-raising on the mountain, both of which took place on the fifth day of the 35-day battle. Rosenthal's photograph promptly became an indelible icon — of that battle, of that war in the Pacific, and of the Marine Corps itself — and has been widely reproduced.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
February / 1945
To Month/Year
March / 1945
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories In Jamieson's "BATTLE OF IWO JIMA" 1945, the immutable forms of the island's mountainous terrain dwarf the epic battle. Emphasis is placed not on the soldiers themselves, bt on tanks, grenades, and controversial flamethrowers, whoes fiery streaks puncture the grey-green mist.
