106th Cavalry Group (United States) - Kappelman Photographic Collection

Kappelman Photographic Collection

T/5 Glenn Kappelman was among replacements who joined the unit on 1 February 1944, and he was able to take about 750 pictures of the unit's action during the remainder of the war. Against orders, Kapplelman had secreted a Kodak 616 camera in his gas mask during embarkation inspection in New York. Because he was a common soldier and not a professional photographer, and since cameras and film were rare among troops in combat, the photographs depict a soldier's everyday experience and are relatively unique among war photography.

Traveling in an M8 armored car, he stashed film in empty ammunition boxes, shooting nearly 100 rolls of film. On one occasion during the winter of 1945 near Lunéville, his M8 was damaged and his squadron was forced to hastily retreat. Unable to carry his boxes of film, he hid them in a nearby home under a table covered by a long tablecloth. He returned two days later to find the ammunition boxes undisturbed.

Fifty years later, he began to produce large format prints of selected images and donated copies to the United States Cavalry Museum at Ft. Riley, Kansas, and other collections. He also gave a set to the King of Belgium who had been 15 years old when he was rescued by Kappelman's unit from German captivity in 1945. Kappelman and fellow 106th veteran Art Barkis narrated a largely self-financed video documentary titled Through My Sights: A Gunner's View of WWII of the photographic collection in 1999. In 2003 he followed that with a book of the same name featuring a large number of the photos interspersed with his personal recollections 50 years later, along with excerpts from his wartime letters and diaries.