By DARLA L. PICKETT
Staff Writer Monday, April 30, 2007

enlarge Staff photo by David Leaming

HANDS ON HISTORY: Terry McManus of New Sharon holds an original photograph of the atomic bomb exploding over Hiroshima, Japan, that is part of a collection of war photographs collected by his father, Robert McManus, and displayed at the Margaret Chase Smith Library Center in Skowhegan. The photograph is signed by crew members who dropped bombs over Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

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PHOTO OP: World leaders Winston Churchill, left, Harry Truman, center, and Joseph Stalin in a photograph from the Robert McManus collection and on display at the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan.

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He gathered signatures from crew members on the Enola Gay right after it dropped the "Little Boy" atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945. He was on the deck of U.S.S. Missouri when the Instrument of Surrender was signed by the Japanese on Sept. 2, 1945. He mingled with such historic men as U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as history was being made more than 60 years ago.

Each one of the correspondent's up-close glimpses of these events is chronicled in his remarkable, one-of-a-kind collection of over 70 black and white U.S. army photos, which his son, Terence McManus, thumbed through with care at the Margaret Chase Smith Library Center one day last week.

"My father told me that none of the allied officers wore ties during the signing of the surrender at the express order of General (Douglas) MacArthur," the younger McManus said, pointing to a photograph of the bare-necked officers at the signing. "The implication was clear, according to my father, that it was a show of disrespect for Japan."

The back of each photograph carries a U.S. Army photo stamp and many have his father's handwritten identification notes, the 63-year-old son said. The photographs had always been around, but not as a unit.

Terence McManus, who assembled the collection into a notebook, said his father, after his work as a correspondent, moved on to work in Washington in 1952 for the House Un-American Activities Committee and was on the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security in the mid-1950s. He died in 2000 at the age of 97.

"Two days after the Titanic sank beneath the waves, he turned nine years old," McManus said.

More than 30 photographs from the McManus collection are on exhibit at the Margaret Chase Smith Library Center as part of a photo retrospective of the conferences of World War II. It will be on view from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday until July 6.

McManus, of New Sharon, said he did not understand the true value of his collection until he met up with Children's Librarian Katherine LeBlanc one day at the Skowhegan Free Public Library and they talked about children's lack of knowledge about military veterans and issues.

When McManus showed her his collection, she understood its historic significance and asked to take it to the Margaret Chase Smith Library Center.

"I was almost afraid to touch them," LeBlanc said of the photos. She took them to the Smith Library and directors there were impressed with the depth of the collection and how it connected with former senator Margaret Chase Smith's support of the conferences.

Sheri Leahan, curator, took over.

"I scanned all the photographs and tried to set them up chronologically, to look at all the conferences before, during and after the war," Leahan said.

She said the photographs run from 1941 to 1945 and includes a few photographs from other collections. A history of the conferences and events hangs beneath the photographs. McManus photographs that were not used can be viewed in a notebook nearby.

The series begins with the secretive Atlantic Conference meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill in 1941 and ends with the final days of the war.

Other photos in between include candid shots of Roosevelt and Churchill aboard the H.M.S. Prince of Wales off the coast of Newfoundland during the Atlantic conference in 1941, a fascinating glimpse of Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek of the Republic of China 1943 and a meeting between U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall and Gen. Douglas MacArthur in December 1943.

The photos take the viewer along with some of the most notable characters in history as they traveled from Casablanca, to Quebec, to China, Pearl Harbor and on to the Big Three Yalta Conference at Livadia Palace in 1945. The edges of a print of the atom bomb exploding at Hiroshima carry several signatures of the crew collected by the elder McManus.

"And here, this is actually Alger Hiss," his son said, pointing to a photo of the man who would later be accused of spying for the Soviets. "And here is TV Soong." He pointed to a photo of a man he said bankrolled the Flying Tigers, the American Voluntary Group that later was incorporated into the U.S. Air Force.

Terence McManus, a retired union laborer who served in the U.S. Navy and conducted naval intelligence, recalled an unusual life growing up: "When we lived in New Jersey, I used to pass by every day where the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped... Lizzie Borden was my third cousin."

"My father was a collector. He had newspapers that would fill a room right to the top," his son said. Among his collection pieces is Hitler's Second Book, an elaboration of the ideas on German Foreign Policy set forth in the second volume of Mein Kampf, he said.

McManus said his father's career was a long and varied one that, at the time, he was too young to comprehend and appreciate: "I only wish I had asked more questions."

Darla L. Pickett -- 474-9534, Ext. 341

dpickett@centralmaine.com