A month and a half after Dumbo’s release, on December 7, 1941, the United States experienced one of the most tragic events in its history: the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Before the smoke from Japanese air attacks settled over the Hawaiian naval base, the Walt Disney Studio was commandeered by the United States Army. The Burbank studio would serve as a storage facility, housing not only army vehicles, weapons, and ammunition, but also troops in the Animation Building, itself. More significantly, Walt Disney and his creative artists would now use their creative energies to produce training and propaganda films to aid in the war effort. These films not only assisted the military, but also educated the American public on the home front. As a result, all preliminary plans for Disney features underway prior to the bombing were shelved, some for ten years. The ‘Golden Age of Animation’ was over.
Between the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1945, Dick Kelsey would serve his country from two fronts: at the Walt Disney Studio in Burbank and eventually overseas in the Southwest Pacific. Within weeks of the bombing, famed motion-picture director Frank Capra used his experiences in filmmaking to produce a series of short films for the U.S. government entitled, Why We Fight. Between 1942 and 1945, the Walt Disney Studio joined forces with Capra to produce animation for the series, and Dick Kelsey was amongst their ranks (52). Existing photos of Kelsey at the Studio picture him in front of storyboards laden with swastikas emblazoned over maps of Europe, and working directly with the women of the Ink and Paint Department.
Three months prior to Bambi’s theatrical release in August of 1942, Kelsey began storyboard work on a series of training films that were aimed at assisting illiterate draftees. The films were centered on the work of Basic English supporter Ivor Armstrong Richards. The theory of Basic English itself broke the language down into its simplest parts, therefore making it easier for illiterates to learn and utilize. Richards worked directly with Disney in mid-1942 while Kelsey produced the visual elements (53).
Hal Adelquist, Personnel Director of Walt Disney Productions at the time, stated, “More recently, I have been associated with Mr. Kelsey in camouflage work in conjunction with the U.S. Army Engineer Corps and also in connection with the Marine Corps work in designing dimensional models for use in amphibious warfare (54)." This branch of Disney production was known as the Walt Disney Volunteer Camouflage Group. Kelsey elaborated in September of 1942 that he had “put in approximately 285 hours working on all types of camouflage and model construction as well as illustrating a camouflage booklet for the U.S. Engineer Corps (55)." It would be one of the last Disney assignments Dick Kelsey had before enlisting in the Marines.
*****
On October 9, 1942, First Lieutenant Richmond Kelsey began Marine training at Camp Elliot near his hometown of San Diego. He would leave behind his wife Pauline (who according to a 1943 Santa Barbara News Press article had been working at the Walt Disney Studio, too) for two-plus years stationed in areas of the Southwest Pacific (56). His skills in art and animation, however, would still play a vital part while away at war.
Under the charge of newly promoted Captain Richmond I. Kelsey in June of 1943, the D-2 section’s Relief Map Unit would further assist Marines in navigating surrounding and nearby areas of the Southwest Pacific through the construction of finely detailed relief-map molds. Several of the men in Kelsey’s unit, too, shared a background in animation, and their formable skills in creating such detailed three-dimensional maps resulted in the coined title of its members: “the Mickey Mouse boys (57)." One map depicted the terrain of the nearby Dromana Bay in southern Australia, where another recreated the Cape Gloucester region of New Britain to the north of the continent. For the latter, four different maps were prepared upon Kelsey’s northern move to the southern tip of New Guinea on Goodenough Island in October 1943. An historical monograph published by a U.S. Marine Corps website displays a detailed list of the Cape Gloucester maps and their corresponding titles and scales:
A 1:15,000 scale map of the Gloucester combat area; the immediate combat area
from Tauali to the Target Hill area, scaled at 1:5,000 and divided into four
sections; YELLOW Beaches and three nearby kunai patches with a scale of
1:2,500 and in two sections, and a 1:1,750 scale of the GREEN Beach area (58).
In an existing April 1944 letter to his sister, American author and illustrator Holling C. Holling who also worked in the background department at Disney during the war years and contributed to elements of Frontierland at Disneyland in the 1950s – wrote about Kelsey’s relief map unit on Goodenough Island. Through Pauline Kelsey – whom Holling became acquainted with while both were employed at the Disney Studio – the illustrator saw photos of Dick Kelsey’s Southwest Pacific studio, describing it as “a two-story thatched house, but all one room, no second floor (59)." Also within the letter, Holling took the time to describe Kelsey’s Cape Gloucester molds in explicit detail, as seen in additional shared photos. Although the location of Cape Gloucester was obviously kept anonymous for confidential reasons at the time, here is what Holling wrote to his sister:
Before a bombing attack or an attack by ships on an atoll or an island, complete
models are made to scale. [Dick] Kelsey sent some photos recently...The model
was made of plaster and plastics, about twenty by thirty feet in length and
width...And it is complete with mountains, reefs, water, and jungle. With this
they used tiny airplanes and boats and planned their campaigns. It was like
developing football plays on a field. Certain groups of planes were to pass over
certain hills at just a certain minute, so many cruisers would come around this
point at that time, etc. We all of us tried to guess what this particular island might
be. It could’ve been Truk itself, in miniature, but of course we won’t know until
after the war. However, this model game is one of the most important in the
business.
Once the molds of an area’s terrain were complete, blueprints of these maps were copied and shared with the Army so additional representations could be created. Kelsey’s efforts earned him a visit from legendary World War II figure General Douglas MacArthur, where the artist had the chance to proudly present his unit’s molds prior to battle. Two existing photos shared by Alma Kelsey with Kathleen Brewster picture a 38-year-old Kelsey pointing to his dimensional maps as MacArthur attentively listens.
In the same 1990 interview previously noted, Alma Kelsey shared with Kathleen Brewster that any art that her late husband had created during his time in the service was done in watercolor, “because he couldn’t get materials that he needed (60)." A recent discovery, however, by John Day (whose father served with Kelsey and had remained close friends), related that he has two war-time oil paintings by Kelsey in his possession, and had another, but donated it to the National Museum of Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia. “My father recently died,” shared Day, “and I inherited three of Dick’s paintings that he had given Dad as gifts during the time they were in the Marine Corps together (61)." This new piece of information is revealing, and supports the fact that not only watercolor, but oil and possibly even acrylic mediums were used by Kelsey to produce various depictions of Southwest Pacific life in the mid ‘40s.
In the early 1950s, two Santa Barbara News Press articles declared that Kelsey had put many of his watercolor paintings from the South Pacific on exhibit in shops located in the Santa Barbara’s El Paseo area. A 1951 article added, “These decorative watercolors are based upon Kelsey’s South Pacific travels as a relief-map officer of the First Marine Division during the war (62)."
An unattributed editorial review from that publication, the Santa Barbara News Press, pointed out the influence animation seemed to have on Kelsey’s South Pacific watercolor renderings. The editor posited that Kelsey’s works are “good examples of the artist’s preference for giving a superficial representation of the human form which is reminiscent of Disney with whom he worked for years.” This same editor also noted weaknesses found in Kelsey’s style, expressing, “Years of practical art work as a commercial artist have left both good and bad marks on Kelsey’s work which lacks in individuality but shows expert craftsmanship (63)." Despite any opinions that can be given about the evolution of Kelsey’s artistic technique, the Disney style that no doubt rubbed off on his approach would become a considerable advantage to Kelsey in the late 1940s and early 1950s, resulting in some of his most wonderfully creative work.
An existing acrylic painting, completed either during or shortly after his military service, serves as a window into some of the sights Kelsey saw while stationed with the First Marines. The scenery consists of black natives inhabiting what appears to be a small village cloistered within a miniature jungle, on what may be Goodenough Island in the Southwest Pacific. Thatched housing – much like Kelsey’s Goodenough Island studio – skillfully elevated several feet off of the ground, creates a perimeter around the village’s encampment as the inhabitants go about their daily routine. Earthy colors are present as shades of browns, crèmes, and tans of the housing, soil, trees, and wildlife, in the form of wild boar, are skillfully accented by the contrast of the vibrant greens, pinks, salmons, and purples, coloring the surrounding flora and fauna and skirts worn by the natives.
To study this painting is to see how Kelsey’s background in animation is infused within the frames of the wooden canvas in which he painted it on. The natives themselves are designed in a most simplistic way, practically stick figures with variations in skin color ranging from shades of brown to deep purples. Each figure’s design is somewhat reminiscent of Kelsey’s Disney colleague and fellow art director, Mary Blair. Blair specialized in the utilization of simplistic colorized designs to convey volumes about her subjects’ state. In fact, one could argue that the piece as a whole seems as if it was taken right out of a Little Golden Books illustration. The feelings of each native, even without the presence of facial features, are apparent through body posture, and the portrayal of motion recalls sketches created in the preliminary stages of the animation process.
The painting is a far cry from the historical depictions of Mexico in the murals Kelsey created for the Santa Barbara Rotary Club in 1936, yet it is a perfect example of how Disney changed him as an artist in a positive way. The piece reveals Kelsey’s keen skills at adapting to mediums and styles of all varieties, and serves him well as he continues to explore his abilities as a creative artist. Freedom to change and explore variations in art was a quality he seemed to thrive on, and is mostly likely the reason why Walt Disney tapped Kelsey to work on significant studio projects during the late 1940s.
Ever since the seeds of animation were sown in Kelsey’s mind in 1938, the roots of storytelling through art over the years grew deeper, even while away at war. The surrounding environments of the whole new world he found in the Southwest Pacific sparked Kelsey’s creative juices, and from them, a story was conceived. Captain Kelsey returned to California not only with fine paintings of the Southwest Pacific, but with a tiny bug that had germinated in his imagination.
52 Fanning, Jim. "Victory Through Animation Power: A Walk With Walt 1943." Disney Twenty-Three, Fall 2012, 53.
53 "Few Words Used in Basic English." The Independent, May 15, 1942.
54 Adelquist, Hal. September 2, 1942. Letter. From National Personnel Records Center. Typed.
55 Kelsey, Richmond I. Enclosure “F” document.
56 "Disney Artist Wins Promotion in South Pacific." Santa Barbara News-Press, October 4, 1943.
57 Holden, Jerry. HyperWar Foundation, "The Campaign on New Britain." Accessed February 2, 2011.
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/USMC-M-NBrit/USMC-M-NBrit-3.html.
58 Ibid.
59 Holling, Holling C., Holling C. Holling to Sister, April 5, 1944. Letter. From Didier Ghez e-mail.
60 Kelsey to Brewster, 1990.
61 John Day, e-mail message to author, October 8, 2012.
62 "Kelsey Will Have Show At Morrey’s." Santa Barbara News-Press, Fall 1951.
63 Santa Barbara News-Press, November 11, 1951.
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