Skip to main content

Pacific Sketchbook

December 2024
1min read

John Cullen Murphy has spent a long and popular career drawing the “Prince Valiant” comic strip. But in World War II he, like so many million Americans, had to take a different job, and he documented in hundreds of sketches the five-year odyssey that took him from South Carolina to the room in which Hirohito surrendered to MacArthur. A portfolio of the liveliest of his drawings and watercolors recalls moments fifty years past with an intimacy and immediacy that even the camera cannot surpass.

Enjoy our work? Help us keep going.

Now in its 75th year, American Heritage relies on contributions from readers like you to survive. You can support this magazine of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it by donating today.

Donate