During WW2, as Chief Photographer’s Mate Ray Platnick was one of the few Coast Guard combat photographers in the Pacific. He joined the first attackers on the beaches of Makin Island in August 1942 and in February 1944 scouted Japanese gun emplacements during the Battle of Eniwetok to warn Marines if they were occupied. He photographed young marines, exhausted after two days and two nights of fighting, downing mugs of coffee.