Battle Fatigue - Iwo Jima 1945

"Battle Fatigue" by Harry Reeks. Iwo Jima, 1945 

Harry Reeks’ Battle Fatigue poignantly captures the reality of war without depicting an actual combat scene.  The US Marine depicted in this watercolor from Iwo Jima has clearly been through a brutal battle. His vacant and exhausted stare, disheveled hair, filthy face, and scruffy days old beard give testament to the ordeal he survived.   

Harry Reeks joined the USMC in 1941 and saw action on Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Bougainville, and Saipan. His skill as an artist was recognized in boot camp which led to his appointment as a combat artist. He was the only official combat artist to land on Iwo Jima with the invasion force and spent thirty days on the island sketching the campaign. Reeks captured every aspect of the battle from the initial landing to the ultimate victory. Twice during the Iwo Jima battle, Reeks was wounded.

Marine artists had wide leeway to cover the war in the Pacific. Reeks’ orders allowed him to attach himself to any unit, so he went everywhere to capture the essence of the battles he drew and painted. He aimed to depict the unvarnished realities of war – chaos and destruction, valor and comradery. 

In 1995 Reeks’ daughter donated 175 of her father’s sketches and watercolors to the Anne S.K. Brown Collection at Brown University.  In addition to the art, diary entries from Iwo Jima and an autobiographical memoir written by Reeks around 1958 were also donated.

Reeks wrote glowingly of the Marines in his memoir where he described the Marine Corps as “the cream of the crop of our great nation.” He was equally proud of his service in the Marines, “I was real and in the flesh. I was a U.S. Marine." Harry Reeks died in 1982.