Vets share art they created in World War II

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- It's been 60 years since World War II, and the war continues to play a prominent role in modern literature, art and film. But with veterans from the war dying at a rate of 1,100 a day, many of their perspectives might never be told.

In an effort to remember the war and the people who participated, the University of Missouri-Columbia's Museum of Art and Archaeology has exhibited artwork done during WWII by two local artists, Keith Crown and Robert Bussabarger.

"We have two artists here in the community who experienced the war," said Joan Stack, interim curator of American and European art at the museum. "You do feel like you have a treasure there."

Although hardship is present in some of their artwork, neither man focused his talent on the horrors of war. Most of the pieces in the exhibit are landscapes and portraits -- moments of beauty untouched by the conflict.

Shortly after Nagasaki

Shortly after the bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, Robert Bussabarger's ship -- seeking shelter from a typhoon -- sailed into the harbor near the city.

A Navy officer stationed on a transport ship, the 23-year-old Bussabarger was among the first Americans on shore after the bomb was dropped.

"Today we took a trip to the atomic bomb area. The phenomena I saw was something never imagined before. It was a place of utter desolation and ruin," he wrote in a journal.

Bussabarger was a trained artist who had practiced his craft throughout his tour of duty. But for the first time in the war, he couldn't draw what he had seen in Nagasaki.

"It was too overwhelming to concentrate on any drawing," Bussabarger recalled.

Bussabarger did one picture of a battle, the only invasion he participated in. It was the battle of Ie Shima, part of the invasion of Okinawa.

With the image still vivid in his mind, the young soldier painted the picture after the battle was over. The rocky coastline is under a dark sky, with the battle represented by abstract markings like scars marring the shore.

Drafted in 1940

Keith Crown had just started a job as an art professor at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army.

Crown spent time on Pacific islands, including Guadalcanal, New Caledonia and Luzon in the Philippines. Soon he was fulfilling requests from top officers to sketch unusual Japanese armaments and defenses.

"If my colonel saw something he thought was very important or unusual and should be published, he would send me to draw it," he said. "I would just go and try to think what was most valuable that I could tell about it."

During the war, Crown completed studies of Japanese tanks hidden in rice paddies and of fortifications on the beach of Kolum-Bangara island.