Coffee Break – LIFE Magazine, April 19, 1943

16,000,000 military personnel were deployed during the span of WWII.¹

LIFE Magazine excelled at capturing candid photographs. There was a phenomenal staff photographer on their payroll. His name was Alfred Eisenstaedt. You can learn more about Alfred’s life here. He was based out of LIFE’s offices in NYC. His most famous photograph might be the VJ Day kiss in Times Square. Photographs he took during the WWII years were often weighty and important. He wasn’t one to shy away from the gritty side of life.

For a quick coffee break, I’d like to share some lesser known photographs he took. They were featured in LIFE Magazine’s April 19, 1943 issue. While this coffee break may not be uplifting, I feel these photographs are important illustrations, encapsulating the daily reality for thousands upon thousands of US citizens. Consider the time these photos were distributed. The United States had been to war for two solid years, with no end in sight.

The pictures speak for themselves. With each one, I wonder what happened to these people. The ones anxiously waiting to board and go off to war. A war they might have already seen, but most likely not. This very well could have been their first deployment. Did any of them really know what they were heading off to? How could they? What of the ones they left behind? These pictures sadden me.

The new bride from the cover photo². Will she ever see her groom again?

The new mother, wondering if her baby will ever really know its father? Will he be coming home to see the baby grown up?

Loved ones nervous as to what the future holds.

Tears people can’t contain. Emotions running so high.

Nurses enlisting to do what they feel is the right thing.

This one hits me in the gut. The caption is so depressing.

This overhead shot Eisenstaedt took shows the scene from a bird’s eye view.

And this was just one day, out of 1,365 days that the US was at war. Just one day at one station in the country. Even though the numbers being deployed fluctuated from day to day, the scene was the same. Nervousness, sadness, weariness, loneliness, and headache settled in like a fog.

I simply cannot even imagine what this generation went through.

1. Gnam, Carl. “U.S. Involvement in WWII: How (and How Much) the Military Grew.” Warfare History Network, 26 June 2017, warfarehistorynetwork.com/us-involvement-in-wwii-how-the-military-grew/.
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2. The picture is of Lieutenant John Hancock Spear and his wife Ester. Page 20 of this issue of LIFE says they were married for four days before he had to go off to war. ↩︎