Focal Point of the Fleet: U.S. Navy Photographic Activities in World War II

Washington, D.C., was the headquarters of most U.S. Navy photographic activities during World War II. Continuing a distinguished history of naval photography, hundreds of cameramen, including Edward Steichen and his team of professional photographers, fanned out from Washington to document both the European and Pacific theaters. They shot millions of still and motion pictures, and sent them back to various facilities, especially the Naval Photographic Science Laboratory at Anacostia. There, hundreds of men and women worked around the clock to generate images that would inspire both their military commanders and the American people with the prowess of the U.S. Navy in warfare.