Snapshots from Korea
The Australian War Memorial holds an extensive collection of photographs of the Korean War taken by official Australian Army photographers. Through blazing summers and freezing winters they photographed soldiers in war, drawing out their characters and personalities, and recording the conditions in which they served. Scenes and portraits needed to be sized up in an instant, and exposures rapidly calculated. Sparingly using 5x4” sheet film and 120 roll film, the photographers usually captured each image in one shot, without the luxury of repeated shots available with later cameras.
And these images can reveal a story. On a hillside in a reserve area somewhere in Korea, Private Alex Hopes of the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR) looks at Army Public Relations photographer, Warrant Officer Class 2 Phillip Hobson. Hopes is listening to an LP record on a Decca 50 wind-up gramophone; records belonging to members of 3RAR are laid out on the blanket.
During cataloguing of this photograph in 2004, curiosity about the records got the better of curators, who examined the negative under a microscope. The Columbia record at the front of the blanket is “Bluebird of happiness”, and on the label is the name of the owner, “Lenoy”. An Indigenous serviceman, Sergeant Stafford Kenny James “Len” Lenoy was a prominent soldier in 3RAR. He had served in the Second World War and the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan. Len Lenoy was killed in action while commanding a machine-gun section of A Company at the battle of Kapyong in April 1951.
Two months earlier, an outstanding portrait of Lenoy, recording his strength and character, was taken by Sergeant Ian “Robbie” Robertson. With little experience in photography, his teacher was none other than Phillip Hobson; Robertson was later appointed as unofficial unit photographer for 3RAR. The sharp vision he brought to his role as sniper transferred successfully to his photography, which can be viewed in the Collection area of the Memorial’s website.
First published in Wartime Issue 72, Spring 2015.