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)

More Like This

President Franklin D. Roosevelt listening to speeches. (Photo by Thomas McAvoy/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation) Photographer

Thomas McAvoy

Representatives of 14 NATO nations (including US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (fore, far R) signing a pact admitting Germany as 15th member in a ceremony at Palais de Chaillot. (Photo by Frank Scherschel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation) Photographer

Frank Scherschel

Boy Scouts racing down a dune at the Indiana Dunes. (Photo by Michael Rougier/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation) Photographer

Michael Rougier

Astronaut Malcolm S. Carpenter and his wife reading with their children. (Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation) Photographer

Ralph Morse

Steve McQueen aims a pistol in his living room. (Photo by Loomis Dean/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation) Photographer

Loomis Dean

Closeup of beautifully weathered hands of Navajo woman modeling turquoise bracelet & ring made by Native Americans. (Photo by Michael Mauney/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation) Photographer

Michael Mauney