There’s Engebi, Rota, the Bonins, and Truk,
Majuro, Namur, and Palau,
Formosa, Kusaie, Eniwetok, and Roi,
Plus Ponape, Guam, and Davao.
These tongue-twisting, weird, unpronounceable spots
Point the way that our forces will go
Through the skies, on the seas, over mountains and plains
To knock out our Nipponese foe.
from “Stepping Stones to Japan” in the Guide to the Western Pacific (1944)
These “unpronounceable” stepping stones are islands in the Pacific, made suddenly familiar to U.S. citizens 50 years ago, with our entrance into World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Some remain quite well known, but most of these islands have sunk back into obscurity. A stunning series of watercolors, painted during the war by a young naval officer, should help recall at least one of these spots—Eniwetok—to the soldiers and sailors who sojourned there. For those who weren’t there, the paintings vividly recreate both the peaceful island atmosphere and the stirring U.S. military presence there.
An atoll in the Marshall Island group composed of a coral reef surrounding a ring of islands that, in turn, encloses a deepwater lagoon, Eniwetok proved the perfect base for boats, ships, and airplanes engaged in the Pacific theater. Jason Schoener was a fresh ensign, commissioned from the U.S. Naval Reserve Midshipman’s School at Northwestern University, when U.S. forces began taking the islands back from the Japanese in 1944- Given command of an LCT in the Western Pacific, Schoener, who had attended the Cleveland Institute of Art and completed a year at Western Reserve University School of Architecture, headed to the Marshall Islands, taking paper and watercolors with him.
During free moments on Eniwetok, while the Seabees unloaded the landing craft, Ensign Schoener painted. From his brush emerged wartime Pacific landscapes: PBYs at mooring awaiting service or under repair on the airstrip, cargo ships at anchor in the atoll lagoon, and submarine chasers and patrol boats in the setting sun. These compelling, impressionistic watercolors offer glimpses into an exciting moment in our history. Painted in the calm, safe haven of the atoll, they depict the machinery of war at rest from combat. More personal than combat art— which requires a documental, illustrative quality—Schoener’s paintings are infused more with a sense of place than of event. They convey the quiet, romantic atmosphere generally associated with the Pacific Islands.
At the same time, however, Schoener’s techniques—broken brush work and a dramatic portrayal of cloud formations and lighting; sometimes bold, bright colors; and the juxtaposition of curved and sharp, geometric shapes—charge the scenes with a sense of impending action. In these splendid watercolors, Schoener conveys both the beauty of the landscape and the ominous quality of a world at war.
In “Wartime Sunset,” for example, Schoener contrasts the black silhouettes of ships at calm in the lagoon with rolling gray clouds and a patch of water glazed yellow with the light of the setting sun. In “Breadfruit Tree—Eniwetok Atoll,” he positions the breadfruit tree to the right of the canvas, its curling branches and oval leaf- bunches in sharp contrast to the jagged rocks at the water’s edge. To the left of the tree, separated by a view of the open ocean, an army-green blanket, draped over a pole, blows in the breeze. The tree and sea create a tranquil mood; the wind-blown blanket and jagged rocks introduce restlessness and infuse the scene with movement.
Other paintings focus on the accoutrements of wartime life: In “Island Airstrip,” huge, pointed, brown tents frame a view of a long tractor and yellow, snubnosed PBYs, leaving only cloudy skies and the thin sticks of distant palms to provide a hint of the Pacific island setting. In “Home Base,” the gray tail of an aircraft on the beach in the foreground leads the eye to the sun-struck lagoon dotted with boats and aircraft. Although not documentary in any formal sense, Schoener’s watercolors of Eniwetok capture with feeling and authenticity the American military presence in a land far from home.
After his service in World War II, Jason Schoener retired to the inactive reserve, from which he was honorably discharged in 1955. He studied at the Art Students League of New York and received his master’s degree in fine arts from the Columbia University Teachers College. Now an internationally recognized artist, he has paintings in the permanent collections at the Whitney Museum, the Athens Technological Institute, the Federal University of Rio du sul in Brazil, and in the private collection of Emperor Akihito of Japan, to name a few.
Throughout his career, from his water- colors of Eniwetok to his latest oils and gouaches of the rocky coast of Maine, Jason Schoener has been inspired by the landscape. Recently, he wrote about his desire to convey what he feels about beauty and nature:
The golden glow of the sun filtering through the lifting fog, the mystery of the moonlit night or the crashing of the surf on a rocky shore provide an equal thrill…through a process of changing, shifting, and sorting of visual elements, I attempted to recreate the subject and intensify my feelings about it.
The Eniwetok watercolors both “recreate the subject” and “intensify” feelings. Schoener hopes to donate the paintings to the U.S. Naval Academy, where they can be enjoyed by others, especially young midshipmen.