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By Francis J. "Red" Grandy
Born on Jan. 26, 1922 on my family's ancestral farm in the town of
Russell, N.Y. and, until the age of 14, most of my life was passed
attending a one-room schoolhouse and helping my father run our dairy
farm.
After graduating from high school I worked at a wire mill in Rome, N.Y.
until joining the Army Air Corps in 1942. After 4 years in the service
I enrolled at the University of Southern California to study cinema and
still photography. There I met Doug Kigour who ran the school's
commercial photo department and was hired as a student photographer at
$1.00 per hour. Doug taught me how to shoot news and feature
photography and convinced me to use the name "Red" as a nom de plume
for professional reasons. This experience qualified me as a fairly
competent photojournalist.
I had a chance to go to Europe to work
on a Masters in cinema after graduating from USC in 1950. While there I
accepted a job as a photographer for the Armed Forces European Edition
of the Stars and
Stripes newspaper.
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Red
and his sidekick
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Four months later I made a photo
of a very surprised General Eisenhower when he was told that President
Truman had fired Gen. MacArthur. The picture was published all over the
world and won almost every prize except the Pulitzer as News Photo of
the Year.
17 days later I shot the reunion
of Robert Vogeler and his wife in Vienna when Vogeler was released
after seventeen months in a Hungarian jail for spying. This was also
published worldwide. Associated Press named it the 2nd best news photo
of the year 1951 after the Eisenhower photo.
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Soon after I was made Chief
Photographer of the newspaper, a position I held for the next 35 years.
During this period I had many successes in getting pictures, often
under very difficult circumstances. Many times the story behind the
picture was more interesting than the story itself.
Since we covered an area between Pakistan and Iceland we found stories
in a mélange of locations. Most of the time we were only a small staff
of 6 photographers. In spite of our small size we competed in the
annual Kent State Newspaper Photo Contest during the last four years of
its existence against nearly all-major US newspapers, many of them with
staffs of 30 or more photographers. It was a contest where each
newspaper sent its 20 best photos of the year to compete. During those
four years we won 2nd place 3 times and first place in 1960.
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Robert
Vogeler
and his wife in Vienna
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During this period we accumulated over
144,000 stories for the European Edition of The Stars and Stripes,
which are at this time still stored at the old headquarters in
Griesheim, Germany. The files are all documented in logbooks and
cross-indexed in card files for easy access. This accurate and
comprehensive documenting of the work of the many photographers who
contributed to the history of the Cold War years in Europe is due to
the dedication of our German secretary, Erna Stanley.
Presently many of these photos may be viewed and purchased through the Stars and Stripes website
by going to estripes
on the net and searching under Archive
Photo of the Day. Images from every photo presented since 1
June 2003 may be viewed under "Browse our Photo Calendar."
These photos
may be purchased by going to the Pictopia Affiliate shop.
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