10/13/2026
This week's highlights the Scranton Harrington Collection!
Scranton Harrington graduated from Officer Candidate School in January 1943 and joined the United States Marine Corps, where he trained in both aviation and ordnance, skills that would shape his role overseas. By October of that year, he had shipped out to New Caledonia, an island that served as a critical staging ground and supply hub for Allied operations across the South Pacific.
In November 1943, U.S. forces launched the Bougainville Campaign in the Solomon Islands, landing at Empress Augusta Bay to seize ground for airfields that would bring the fight closer to the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul. Harrington was there, part of a campaign that would stretch for months on the island's dense jungle terrain.
While in the Pacific, his path eventually led to the Philippines, where he took part in its liberation. Driving a Jeep north, he made his way to Santo Tomas, one of the camps that had held Allied civilians captive throughout the war. He arrived in time to witness one of the campaign's most memorable moments, as internees who had endured years of hardship finally saw freedom.
Through it all, he carried a camera. Those photographs are what remains, now preserved in this collection, offering a glimpse into one soldier's journey across some of the most significant campaigns of the Pacific War.
Interested in more? Visit the Portal to Texas History, available on the museum's website at the Center for Pacific War Studies.
📸:
1) Scranton Harrington on the edge of a cliff
2) Children in a Marine Air Group 24 jeep after the liberation of Santo Thomas
3) Four servicemen sitting in a canoe
