Richard Shirk

Military

Richard K Shirk was born in Syracuse, New York, on 24 July 1924. A professional photographer, he began his career in 1939 at the Grosse Point News in Michigan. In 1942, he worked for B F Goodrich in Ohio before joining the United States Army Air Force in 1943 as a photographer. After initial training in Colorado he was attached to the 155th Night Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, based in Somerset and Oxfordshire, England. He became a photography crew chief, improvising equipment and repairing aerial cameras and worked with Dr Harold Edgerton on the development of electronic flash for night photography.



When off-duty, Shirk photographed bomb damage, local surroundings, landscapes, air force life and the local population. His interest in reportage photography continued when the squadron was based in northern France and later in Gemany, over which he also took many hundreds of aerial photographs using his personal camera. In addition to unique reportage photographs, he took noteworthy oblique aerial photographs of bomb damaged German cities, the bridge at Remagen and Dachau concentration camp whilst still occupied by prisoners.



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The photographs were held by Beth Shirk, daughter of Richard Shirk, who gifted them to NCAP after watching the PBS documentary '3D Spies of WWII' in 2012.