This World War II photograph shows American soldiers wading into water on an island in the New Georgia group of the Solomon Islands. They are part of Operation Cartwheel, a U.S.-led effort, supported by forces from Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands, to neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, by advancing upon it from two directions: from the west along the northeast coast of New Guinea and from the east through the Solomon Islands. The photograph is by Sergeant John Bushemi (1917-44), a staff photographer for the U.S. Army magazine Yank. The son of Italian immigrants from Gary, Indiana, Bushemi began his career as a photographer for the Gary Post-Tribune. In July 1941, he enlisted in the Army and in June 1942 was assigned to Yank to cover the war in the Pacific. He was killed on February 19, 1944, some months after he took this photo, while filming the landing of U.S. forces on the island of Eniwetok.