World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseGaetano Faillace was born to Marcello and Francesca Faillace (née Sciacca) in New York, New York, United States in 1904. He served as a photographer in the US Army during WW2, initially at the rank of sergeant, but was promoted to be the officer rank of captain when he was assigned to General Douglas MacArthur. This was so that he would be a fellow officer of those who attend the same meetings and events as MacArthur. Two of MacArthur's most well known photographs were Faillace's work. One of them was of MacArthur wading ashore at Leyte in the Philippine Islands in Oct 1944. The other was the photograph of MacArthur and Emperor Showa in Dec 1945. At the latter, MacArthur told him to take only one photograph, but ultimately relented to Faillace's request for three, which would be fortunate in retrospect, for that MacArthur blinked in the first photograph and Emperor Showa was not fully posed in the second. Of the lesser known ones, Faillace's photograph of MacArthur looking across Manila Bay at the island of Corregidor in the Philippines was later featured on the cover of MacArthur's autobiography Reminiscences. After serving in occupied Japan, he remained in the military, with his rank reverted back to sergeant. His final assignment was with the Army Pictorial Center (now Kaufman Astoria Studios) in Astoria, New York, United States. With this unit, he photographed MacArthur's funeral procession through New York. Faillace retired from military service in 1965 at the rank of major. Jean MacArthur, wife of the general, made sure that Faillace became the owner of many of the personal photographs he took of the general, so that he could benefit from royalties. He published a Japanese-language book in 1983 featuring photographs he had taken during the occupation. He passed away from cancer in Fayetteville, North Carolina, United States in 1991.

Photographs Taken by Gaetano Faillace

Gaetano Faillace Timeline

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