The Hoover Institution Library & Archives has acquired a collection of 47 black and white photographs taken by photographer Francis Miller while stationed in the South Pacific during World War II as a combat photographer. The photographs capture striking scenes from the Second Philippines Campaign and the Navy base on Dutch New Guinea including the Battle of Surigao Strait, the Battle of Leyte, the Battle of Mindoro, and the Battle of Ormoc Bay, among others.
Francis Miller was born in Texas and studied journalism at the University of Texas and art in Chicago before enlisting in World War II. Prior to the war he freelanced as a photographer for Life and became a staff photographer for the publication in 1947. Miller was renowned for his uncanny ability to get an image by hiding his camera in all manner of things including cigarette cases, neckties, and carved out pages of novels. Using hidden cameras, he photographed the 1952 Republican National Campaign, gamblers in Cuba, and dogs on the White House lawn. In his later career, he documented the Civil Rights movement, photographing the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech. He retired from Life in 1968.
