World War II

During World War II Beaton became a war photographer. This was a completely new territory for Beaton but he succeeded. He did such a great job capturing the war that the Ministry of Information hired him to capture different aspects of the war effort in Britain, the Middle East, and the Far East. (Six books were made out of these photographs). 

Arguably his best and well known photograph from the war was taken over a year before the U.S. entered the war. The picture was of a 3 year old girl Eileen Dunne. Eileen was in the hospital because a German bomber's crew dropped a bomb on her North England Village. A splinter from it hit Eileen. Beaton's photo of her was powerful and used as propaganda to grab the attention of Americans who felt the war was far away. 

Life Magazine, September 23, 1940

Beaton took many other moving pictures from the war (which I will post below). These pictures show  a different, refreshing side of Beaton.

A man and his daughter pass posters in Cairo, Egypt, 1942
Cecil Beaton/Imperial War Museum 

A sailor on board HMS Alcantara uses a portable sewing machine
to repair a signal flag during a voyage to Sierra Leone
Cecil Beaton/Imperial War Museum 

Men of the Long Range Desert Group after returning to
headquarters at the end of a desert patrol, Siwa, Libya, 1942
Ccecil Beaton/Imperial War Museum 

Bomb damage to the church of St Lawrence Jewry, Guidhall,
London, 1940
Cecil Beaton/ Imperial War Museum 

Bomb damage to a fire station, Tobruk, Libya, 1942
Cecil Beaton/ Imperial War Museum 

The Blitz, London, 1942. A workman with a wheelbarrow clears
up fallen debris from the roof of St Mary-le-Bow after its
first bombing.
Cecil Beaton/Imperial War Museum 

A British Sailor on shore leave, Harrogate, 1941
Cecil Beaton/Imperial War Museum 

A wren serving with the crew of a harbor launch in Portsmouth,
1941
Cecil Beaton/Imperial War Museum 

Flying Officer Neville Duke of NO 93 (East India) Squadorn.
Duke was a battle of Britain and is pictured here with his Spitfire at RAF
Biggin Hill in 1941.
Cecil Beaton/Imperial War Museum 

A welder works on the deck of a new ship, Tyneside, 1943
Cecil Beaton/ Imperial War Museum 

Villagers cross duckboards over floating bamboo poles, Guangxi,
China 1944. The poles are being soaked in fresh water to prepare
for construction use.
Cecil Beaton/Imperial War Museum 

China, 1944: the Chinese assistant chief of police and his staff grouped
in a circular doorway at headquarters in Chengdu
Cecil Beaton/Imperial War Museum 

Bomb damage to HMV gramophone shop, Oxford Street, London
1940.
Cecil Beaton/ Imperial War Museum 

Beaton, C., & Vickers, H.  (2003). The unexpurgated Beaton: the Cecile Beaton diaries as  he wrote them, 1970-1980. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Ronk, L.(2015). Cecil Beaton’s war child: portrait of victim of the blitz. USA Today.  Retrieved from: http://life.time.com/history/cecil-beaton-portrait-of-eileen   dunne  1940-london-blitz/#1

The Guardian. (2012) "Cecil Beaton's rare war photography- in pictures. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/aug/31/cecil-beaton-war-photography-pictures

Vickers, H. (1985). Cecil Beaton: A biography. Boston, MA: Little Brown.