8:45 p.m. Monday, June 15 Clarification: The photo posted earlier was a part of Robert Clark's National Geographic project, but it was not his father Russ Clark of Hays.
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The images are all similar — a U.S. Navy machinist, a Soviet medic, a Holocaust survivor.
They all lived through the same time — World War II, but their stories are very different.
Hays native, Hays High grad and photographer Robert Clark shot the series of portraits for National Geographic for a cover story to commemorate the 75 anniversary of V-E Day. Among the photos was a portrait of Robert's father, Russ Clark of Hays.
Russ, who will celebrate his 96th birthday on June 17, was a machinist first mate in the engine room of the USS Furquay, an escort destroyer. He served in the North Atlantic and was shipped to the Marshall Islands after the end of the war in Europe.
The destroyer sunk the last German U-boat of the war. The submarine turned on the destroyer the day after V-E Day, unaware the war had ended. The destroyer issued depth charges and sunk the attacking sub.
Russ was like many young men of the Greatest Generation. He grew up on a farm during the Dust Bowl, working hard and doing without.
Russ Clark was 19 when he joined the Navy and, like many boys from the Midwest at the time, had never seen the ocean. He was injured playing football in high school and saved his own money to have surgery to have a hernia repaired so he could pass the physical to enter the service, Robert said.
Russ had two brothers in the Army Air Corps, and Robert's mother had a brother who was a P-51 pilot and another who was B-24 Liberator pilot.
Robert said when he wrote the proposal for National Geographic he was well aware the world is losing members of this generation every day.
Of 17 million people who served in the U.S., only about 450,000 WWII veterans remain. About 5,000 former WWII service personnel are being lost every week. Robert said he thought those losses will likely be deeper in light of COVID-19.
"It is always best as a photographer if I can filter out the best interpretation of something," Robert said. "There is nothing better than the voices of people who lived through this."
During his work, Robert said he learned about the siege of Leningrad, which lasted about 900 days. The city was surrounded on three sides by Nazis. The Russians sent trucks full of children out and trucked supplies into the city on a road dubbed the "Road of Life."
One of the women Robert met was driven out of Leningrad on the Road of Life.
"To hear these stories first-hand, it is hard to imagine what people went through and the difficulties that people went through," he said.
The cover of the June issue of National Geographic is a photo Robert shot of a man named Lawrence Brooks, 110, of New Orleans. He served in the Philippines and the South Pacific.
"It is very poignant to hear, with what is going on with Black Live Matter, about the racism he dealt with in the service and then when he came home — the fact that he couldn't get a job even though he put his life on the line for the country," Robert said.
"He is an amazing man, and he has an amazing story himself."
When Brooks was 96 years old, Hurricane Katrina flooded his house and he swam in water up to his chest to a church down the block where he climbed on the roof until he could be rescues by a helicopter.
Robert also met a Holocaust survivor who went into hiding when she was 3 year old and did not come outside again until she was 6.
"Her distinct memory is her mother. She was Jewish. When she was 3 years old leaving her with a Christian lady and, three years later, her mom coming back," Robert said. "She never had a real opportunity to go back and find the lady who helped her because after she was picked up by her mother. They immigrated pretty quickly.
"That was one of the big tragedies of her life, she said, to never be able to go back and thank this woman who saved her life."
Robert added, "There are all sorts of personal stories, but they paint a larger picture of what people had to deal with in the world at that time."
Robert said hearing the stories gave him a greater appreciation for his father's service.
"When I was 19, I was skipping classes at K-State and going to Aggieville and spending time in Kites and some of these other bars," he said.
"There was a real pulling together of the nation. I think everyone knew they had to be involved. There was really not much question because it was just the right thing to do and the world needed them to be involved."
After the war, Russ went to K-State, where he met Robert's mom. Robert's mother's family owned the Lamer Hotel, which is now the Chestnut Building on Main Street in Hays. Russ worked there for a time.
Russ eventually opened The Village Shop clothing store at 1102 Main, Hays, which he ran for 30 years.
Robert had already shot the photo of his father when he wrote the proposal for the photo series for National Geographic. He opted to shoot all of the photos in the same style.
"The primary artistic difference was the person in the photo," he said. "My father's picture is shot similar to a Holocaust survivor, which is shot similar to a women who was a medic in the Soviet Army. I wanted them to all look like they belonged together, but they had amazingly varied experiences."
Robert has worked on about 50 projects for National Geographic, 12 of which were cover stories.
"It was nice to work on a project that I thought of and that I had the initial idea for," he said, "and that you end up getting a full-page picture of your father in the magazine. That was kind of special to me."