Clyde Waddell

The album is prefaced by a one-page printed introduction by M. Charles Preston of New York City, ‘ex-enlisted man, former CBI’er and co-worker with the author on Phoenix Magazine in Calcutta, India.’ This introduction, which includes a half-tone illustration of the photographer with a snake charmer, describes Waddell’s career as a war photographer in Asia and the genesis of this album. According to this account, Waddell was a chief photographer for the Houston Press before entering the US Army and coming to the India-Burma Theatre in November 1943, where he was attached to the Public Relations Staff of Southeast Asia Command ‘with the express purpose of acting as personal press photographer for Supreme Commander Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten.’ He accompanied Mountbatten throughout Southeast Asia until February 1945, when he was assigned as news photographer to Phoenix Magazine, ‘a 24-page picture weekly sponsored by the combined U.S.-British command’. On leave in Calcutta after the liberation of Singapore, ‘He took these pictures at the behest of many friends who had been constantly asking him for photos of Calcutta scenes. By the time he completed this project, which brought him into some of the remotest out-of-bounds areas (and even on top of Calcutta’s Howrah Bridge), he was flooded with requests from Americans and British for copies of his photographs. That is how this book was born. Requests became so numerous and response to the effort so enthusiastic that Waddell felt compelled to make the album more generally available through fellow ‘GI’ agents. It is hope you will enjoy your album as much as I enjoyed the association with Clyde during its production. As a documentary of Calcutta, it’s tops.’

The album contains candid shots of scenes that had rarely been captured on film before. Some are market and street and river scenes, with a few interior pictures of temples, train stations, an opium den, and a brothel. Many of the photographs feature American soldiers stationed in Calcutta or document American military landmarks in Calcutta, such as the U.S. Army headquarters, a hotel for U.S. Army officers, and the American Red Cross Burra Club. A few of these images are very graphic, and you do not realize what is being portrayed until reading the caption.

Clyde Waddell