Jack Wilkes with his camera in China. (Photo by Jack Wilkes/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Jack Wilkes with his camera in China. (Photo by Jack Wilkes/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A disabled Twentieth Century Fox cameraman named Clarence Albert Bach ran a photography high school near Los Angeles called Fremont, which produced several LIFE photographers, including George Strock, John Florea and Bob Landry. Jack Wilkes (born 1907), who had arrived in the United States from his native Wales when he was just a child, was among that select group. Like so many of his era, Wilkes covered WWII for LIFE, and saw much fighting in China as he roamed with his frequent collaborator, writer Theodore H. White.

Adapted from The Great LIFE Photographers

A Chinese infantryman. (Photo by Jack Wilkes/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A Chinese infantryman. (Photo by Jack Wilkes/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

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