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Donna Esposito
Holding Death at Bay:
The Story of a World War II Photograph, Blood Plasma, and the Soldier it Couldn’t Save
On August 9, 1943, Army Signal Corps photographer Lt. John Stephen Wever captured a stirring scene on a street in Sicily not far from the front lines. Pfc. Harvey White administered blood plasma to a wounded soldier, Pvt. Roy W. Humphrey, while a Sicilian family looked on from their home.
Thanks to the kind hospitality of Sicilian WWII researcher Ciro Artale, in August 2018 I traveled to Sant' Agata, Sicily to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the photo and meet the Sicilian family at whose home it was taken.
Gazzetta del Sud, 11 August 2018
Read more about Pvt. Roy Willis Humphrey and the plasma photo at his Fold3 memorial.
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