70 Years Hence

Memorial Day

It was a tremendous honor to participate in creating this memorial at Ft Logan Cemetery, Denver. This is dedicated to the men of the Tenth Mountain Division (including my dad) who fought in WW II. I was privileged to render the climber and the mountains seen in the granite and the marble faces of the stone. Presented in 2009, it is a place to honor our fathers who had the task of seizing one island in the Aleutian chain, and countless mountain redoubts in north Italy. My dad remembered that the German bunkers were also cast into granite mountains; the major ones had walls 200 feet thick!


Photo: Ken Elliott.

Captain America Couldn't Get In The Tenth Division

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Since I have a happy large bumpsworth of readers coming in from the military veteran site, Blackfive, I want to write a little about some drawings I did, WWII, my father's service and also share some gratuitous climbing stories.  Pull up a chair.


Personal story.


One time I was rock climbing in the Cascade Mountains with another fellow, and I mentioned my father's having been in the 10th Mountain Division.  He said that his own father wanted very badly to get in the Tenth, but was underage.  That guy's father went on to become one of the most esteemed mountain climbers of all time, which was probably some consolation to him.  Anyway, we did some gnarly climbs, and started singing climbing and Tenth Mountain songs at the top of our voices.  It was fun.


Captain America Couldn't Get In The Tenth Division.


My father had similar experiences.  He'd be at the VFW and some guy would be at the bar asking where he served.  When dad told, the answer invariably went something like, "no kiddin'?  I tried to get in that unit!"


Service in the World War II 10th Mountain Division was a rare and unique privilege.  Some men volunteered for special units, and then had to qualify for their billet, and we think of paratroopers, fliers, and Marine Raiders when we think of elite troops in the war.  But, in the Tenth, an applicant had to present qualifications as a mountaineer, skier or some type of rugged outdoorsman, such as a wrangler, cowboy or mule skinner.  As proof, you had to carry three letters of recommendation from some authority on the matter.  Then, after being successfully boarded, you were privileged to train with the nation's only ski troops and mountain infantry, and to say it was rugged is comically understated.


Anyway, the short version is that my dad's unit was the hardest trained unit of Americans in the Second World War.  This explains some of the reason for their outstanding performance in combat on the Italian Front.  I visited the battlefields in 2006, and the reception the veterans received there from the Italians was remarkable.


I had the privilege of drawing some designs and images for a war monument, and the story is told in the following re-post.


Climber Sketch.

Sketch WW II Climber

11" x 9"

Charcoal, Pastel and Compressed White Charcoal on Rives BFK

Casey Klahn

Yesterday's post on the Medal of Honor.

I am proposing an illustration for a memorial to my late father's World War Two army division. I will post the roughs and sketches here as I get them completed.

This guy has a ways to go as a sketch, but he's on the path. I want to re-render the hand, and maybe add some more grace of movement. That used to be a big deal for me in the days when I drew the figure lots, and it has extra meaning when rock climbing is involved. I did enjoy taking the extra effort to model the figure, especially since it will stick out (if this becomes the final image) from a marble flat as an etching.

Next, I want to render a ski trooper as another proposal for the etching.

For you oldsters out there: remember Tom Lea? I certainly thought of his seminal on-sight drawings from WW II. Must have rubbed off on my psyche.

This book, The Two Thousand Yard Stare, covers Lea's WW II art and writings about his work. I once asked my late father, who saw heavy combat in North Italy, about this phenomenon of the "two thousand yard stare," which is the look a shell-shocked infantryman "gets" when he comes off the line. His story was a keeper. He said that he recalled one guy in particular who had that look coming off the front in the North Apennines (revered as one of the worst places to be in WW II) and he was also rather tall. Maybe 6' 6" or something like that.  Years after the war, my dad picked him out of a crowd back in the states - quite an unusual circumstance, but he certainly remembered that guy's face.

I spent a number of years in the infantry, and later as a mountain climber. All subjects deeply held, and good content for my illustrations.


They Drew Fire. PBS documentary on war artists of WW II.
Tenth Mountain Division Association. My father's army unit. I am working up illustrations for a memorial plaque in their honor.

Photo credit: Lorie Klahn

Finger Crack,
Leavenworth, Washington

Coffee Break - Hospitals, WW II, Kittens, and Bears

So Embarrassing.

 There is never a dull moment around here.  I wanted to have a cup of coffee with my readers and bring you up to date.  Much of studio life takes place outside the walls of the studio.  My studio is on my property in rural eastern Washington, and my family life and other country happenings this week have kept me away from art and this screen.


1. My son, Carson, stayed overnight in the hospital last week with a skin disease.  His skin is now almost clear, and he is doing great.  It was hard for the parents of an eight year old, but for him it was like a stay in a luxury hotel.  He missed school all week except half a day, and last night, I took him to the movies.  I have been updating peeps via Facebook.



2. Yesterday, May 8th, commemorated the end of WW II in Europe.  Sixty-five years ago the unconditional surrender went into effect and was dubbed V-E Day.  The US press was absent, for the most part, in commemorating this, but I see that the UK and much of Europe, and Canada did have ample press regarding this important date.  Since my US audience needs remedial history on this, I have prepared a set of five facts you didn't know about V-E Day, which is at the bottom of this post.


3. Let's do the bear story next.  Yesterday morning I found myself in the woods alone with a bear.  This has happened to me a handful of times, but I usually don't get too charged up about it.  The American Black Bear is pretty much like a big, cuddly dog who leaves you alone if you leave him alone.  This one was different. This bruin was very large, and uncomfortably close.  I estimated about 70 yards away, and above me.  His color was an amazing cinnamon brown, but not like the brown or blond that marks the back of Black Bears sometimes.  This guy was head to claw cinnamon brown, and flawless.  Because of the size, and the unusual color, I started doing the checklist in my head that is titled: "Is This a Grizzly?"


He was looking at me.  I was looking at him and doing the field taxonomy that any sane woodsman does in his head. First, you look for the hump at the shoulders.  Since he was above me, I couldn't make one out, but I did note the distance from shoulder to chest was massive.  The head also lacked that dog shape common to Black Bears.  Instead, it was big and round - I would say massive.  He turned his head once, and then gazed back at me.  He had heard me crashing over branches and had come up to see what the noise was all about.  He was calculating his moves, too.  Is this little thing dangerous to me?  Should I saunter off, or give him the growl?  What does he taste like?


The bear's decision was to walk in my direction, which is either the common curiosity of bears, or the run-up to you-know-what.  By this time, I had finished my list, and my new task was egress. He had me tactically, because he was on a level contour, and I had to ascend diagonally to get to the field and "outta there."  As I made my way up, I could see his bright red coat coming through the trees.

So, that was fun.  The neighbor saw a large bear track on the road the other day, too.  A guy looks for this kind of commiseration when he has an out-sized story to tell.  Was this a Brown Bear?  I'll never know.  If he was a Black, then he gets the prize for beauty, and is in my top 3 for size.  I did see a Grizzly in the wild one other time, but it was a roadside event in Banff.  That was a monstrous bear, tearing at roots like a machine, and I would say twice the size of my bear from yesterday.  Except yesterday, I didn't have a car.


4. How to top that?  All the news I have left is the two litters of kittens we have.  My 7 year old daughter finds them much more engaging than my bear story.

Now, all that energy can be channeled into the studio.  See you next time.

Five facts about VE-Day: 


1.  The unconditional surrender document was signed on the 7th of May, and ratified on the 8th.  The allies wanted to avoid the troubles surrounding the WW I armistice by having the German High Command as signators this time.
2. No head of state was present at either the German surrender ceremony or the Japanese one on September 2, 1945.
3. The surrender in the Mediterranean Theater was the 2nd of May, 1945.
4. Susan Hibbert typed the document of surrender in English.
5. The surrender of Italy on September 3rd of 1943 had some wiggle room at first, and only later became "unconditional."


Bear photo: Madfelix.
Kittens photo: Lorie Klahn

Remembrance and Honor

View down "Battleship Row," Pearl Harbor.

In 1975, when I joined the Army National Guard in Aberdeen, Washington, there were still a few World War II veterans in uniform. One of them had the opportunity to address us on the subject of survival. What did he know about survival? Just this: he fought on the deck of his navy cruiser (second in size only to a battleship for a surface warship) on that December 7th day in 1941. Pearl Harbor day.

You don't need to hear the details of it, but we listened closely to the brutality of this mechanized war nightmare that he was reliving for us. It was bloodstory and anything but pretty.

Of course, like men will do, especially in uniform, there had to be some humor to cut the sheer magnitude of war experience. Like the time his cruiser was thrice torpedoed in the Solomons, and he had to abandon ship. From the rail of the deck, it is a long way to the water, and navy training very specifically indicates that you must plug the first orifice that's going to hit the water. And the handiest and best plug is your finger - I'm not making this up. Anyway, he didn't do it, and it turned out that the navy was right - you get a load of sea water where you don't want it!

Speaking of threes, he spent 3 days in the water, with Japanese zeroes strafing him, sharks in the water, and of course you get to watch your crew mates bobbing around in all of this mess. I'm glad he made it.

Last Saturday, December 5th., the dedication ceremony for a monument honoring the service of my father's WW II army division was held near Denver, Colorado. I was pleased to be involved by providing the illustrations for the stone and marble monument. One is a depiction of the Colorado Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, where the Tenth Mountain Division trained. The other is larger, and of a soldier climbing the face of Riva Ridge, in Italy where the 15,000 man unit fought in 1945.

See my reports of the progress of this project here and here. See my artwork related to the 10th Mountain Division here and here. I'm proud that I was asked to be a small part of it, and happy to have it co-ordinate with Pearl Harbor remembrances here in 2009, sixty-eight years post the events of that infamous day.

The Smithsonian remembers PHD.
Some first person reports for you.

D Day

June 6th., 1944.

Sixty-five years ago today, the Allied armies invaded Europe. Pictured above is the loading in the UK of Allied troops and equipment for the assault.

Hundreds of thousands of acts of bravery were performed by mostly young men from nations such as the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland. What acts? That Tuesday morning, almost 200,000 soldiers and sailors put on their uniforms, and made their rendezvous with destiny - they put ashore. This became the legacy of our civilization throwing off the chains of tyranny.

Very nice full screen panoramic views of D Day sights.

Colorado Front Range & Studio News

Colorado Front Range
Ink
1" x 10"
Casey Klahn

This mountain image will become the banner over the memorial stone that I am designing for the Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, Colorado. Below the mountains, which will be in raised relief on bronze, will be the header: WORLD WAR II TENTH MOUNTAIN DIVISION, UNITED STATES ARMY.

My previous entries of this project are here and here.

When you hail from a mountain state like Washington, it is important that you don't just throw up mountains that look like your own area! I wanted to be sure to get the look accurate to the Colorado Front Range, which is where the memorial will be placed. Maybe only a climber would notice, but it was one more thing in the process of creating this granite and bronze memorial.

So much for my foray into the world of illustration. I see that commercial art has much more to it than one may think. Research into the actual look of things is troublesome and time consuming. For my WW II climber, I happened to have an original US Army alpine rucksack in my studio, and I made my wife pose wearing it in the same aspect that my climber would be adopting. I also posed a mannequin to back up the image. I had to look up the M1 Garand rifle to be really sure of the authentic look. The helmet is another bugaboo, which can be difficult to get right because of it's cast three dimensional shape (and its iconic status). Luckily, when I served in the infantry, we still wore the old WW II style helmet, and so the look is well impressed on my mind. But, I still got photo references to be sure. Then, let's not forget the actual climbing moves. It helps to have been there and done that, since photos and images of rock climbers can often look so foreign to the eye that sometimes it's hard to tell which way is up.

Now I have new respect for guys like Milton Caniff (one of my favorite cartoonists), whose studio can be seen via Gurney Journey. I grew up reading his Sunday strip about Steve Canyon, who always got around in a jeep or a C-47 airplane. And, they always looked correct.

Back to fine art, which is my actual day job. Since we cannot take pictures until night in the studio, finding the evening time to get photos of all my new work has been challenging. By the time we get the kids to bed, often the mommy and the daddy are too pooped to make the long trek across the yard to the studio!

Here is a sneak peek at my studio activities during this busy time. New river landscapes are on the left, and the famous rucksack and climber image are below and to the right.

Messy, Messy, Messy Studio

P.S. Just got the Twitter news (thanks, Alyson) that today is National Cartoonist Day. How about that?

"Knock It Off!"

"Ri-iiigh-ut FACE!" Shhhhush, thump!
Close Order Drill for Ski Troops at Camp Hale, Colorado,
WW II

As huge search lights illuminated the clouds above the battle front, the elite men of the U.S. Army's Tenth Mountain Division climbed the escarpment known as Riva Ridge. An eerie glow prevailed, and the weather was anything but ideal. Ice and snow were present, and the German forces manning the Gothic Line defenses in north Italy were not willing to relinquish any strongpoint to the Americans. Could the vaunted, but green, Mountaineers do what was evidently impossible, and take these high promontories away from hardened German mountain fighters (including Gebirgsjaeger Mountain Troops of the Wehrmacht)? The Mount Belvedere massif, adjacent to Riva Ridge, had repelled the best that the Allies had to offer in four previous attacks.

Battle for Riva Ridge, Tenth Mountain Division and Brazilian Expeditionary Force,
WW II. Source: U.S. Army

My father, Pfc. Kenneth K. Klahn, held a German officer at gunpoint. He was in an artillery observation post below the huge face of Riva Ridge. Our troops had been taking casualties, and prisoners were filtering in. Far from being the second rate troops that some Americans were up against at the end of the war, these Germans were defending the heights with tenacity. The enemy Offiziere was secretly trying to crush a telephone wire with the heel of his boot. Klahn gave him the toughest "knock it off" look he could, and threatened him with his carbine to make the point. Perhaps he even sprinkled that with some well-chosen deutsch, since his parents spoke German at home.

As history records, and to the astonishment of the Germans, the Tenth's climbers completed the night climb, under winter conditions, and forced their way onto the summit ridge. Repelling repeated, fierce counter-attacks, they held Riva Ridge. The remarkable offensive energy that the Tenth displayed over the course of driving the enemy from the series of heights beginning at Riva Ridge, and proceeding from summit to summit along the Apennines range, caused the Germans to throw reinforcements into the breach. The Tenth took that in stride, and as a result their casualty rate was exceedingly high. In cemeteries from Florence, Italy, to Colorado, Washington State and other mountain communities throughout America, lie young men for whom sacrifice is much more than an abstract buzz word.

Now you know the story behind my climber drawing. Also see the post below about Riva Ridge and another drawing that I did of a tiny hut at Riva Ridge, Italy.


Riva Ridge
Veterans - Pictures of your author's trip to Italy
The National Association of the 10th Mountain Division

Tenth Mountain Memorial

Tenth Mountaineer on Riva Ridge
20" x 12"
Charcoal
Casey Klahn

A more unusual outfit than my father's U.S. Army division would be hard to find. Just think about the veterans of the Tenth Mountain Division who pulled off the assault of Riva Ridge in Italy in the winter of 1945. The physical and technical requirements of mountain warfare are more than a little beyond the norm. A special man is required.

There never was an army unit like the famous Tenth Mountain Division of the Second World War. They were experienced outdoorsmen, mountain climbers and world-class skiers who trained themselves from scratch to be mountain troopers. As a consequence, they trained longer and harder than any other division in the war.


My father, Pfc. Kenneth K. Klahn, told me that the army ordered the 10th soldiers to remove their unit insignia when they got to Italy. The shoulder patch insignia was a red, white and blue powder keg with crossed bayonets organized to represent the Roman numeral ten. Added above that was a rocker with the word "MOUNTAIN" over the patch. Ironically, the Germans greeted the Hollywood and press-famous ski troops with flyers welcoming them to the Italian Theater of war. "See Naples and Die!" So much for secrecy - the Nazis were waiting, deeply entrenched behind the Gothic Line, in the North Apennines mountain range. Would the Tenth live up to their press?

Tomorrow: "Knock It Off!"

Climber Sketch

Sketch WW II Climber
11" x 9"
Charcoal, Pastel and Compressed White Charcoal on Rives BFK
Casey Klahn

Yesterday's post on the Medal of Honor.

I am proposing an illustration for a memorial to my late father's World War Two army division. I will post the roughs and sketches here as I get them completed.

This guy has a ways to go as a sketch, but he's on the path. I want to re-render the hand, and maybe add some more grace of movement. That used to be a big deal for me in the days when I drew the figure lots, and it has extra meaning when rock climbing is involved. I did enjoy taking the extra effort to model the figure, especially since it will stick out (if this becomes the final image) from a marble flat as an etching.

Next, I want to render a ski trooper as another proposal for the etching.

For you oldsters out there: remember Tom Lea? I certainly thought of his seminal on-sight drawings from WW II. Must have rubbed off on my psyche.

This book, The Two Thousand Yard Stare, covers Lea's WW II art and writings about his work. I once asked my late father, who saw heavy combat in North Italy, about this phenomenon of the "two thousand yard stare," which is the look a shell-shocked infantryman "gets" when he comes off the line. His story was a keeper. He said that he recalled one guy in particular who had that look coming off the front in the North Apennines (revered as one of the worst places to be in WW II) and he was also rather tall. Maybe 6' 6" or something like that. Years after the war, my dad picked him out of a crowd back in the states - quite an unusual circumstance, but he certainly remembered that guy's face.

I spent a number of years in the infantry, and later as a mountain climber. All subjects deeply held, and good content for my illustrations.


They Drew Fire. PBS documentary on war artists of WW II.
Tenth Mountain Division Association. My father's army unit. I am working up illustrations for a memorial plaque in their honor.