a War Photographer from Kansas
Donald Thompson in combat dress in Russia in 1917
Donald Thompson was a fine example of one of the new types of heroes made so popular during the Great War : the globe-trotting, flamboyant and fearless war-photographer. Born in Topeka Kansas around 1894, he enjoyed little formal education, but had a good eye for finding, photographing and reporting newsworthy events. He first started working for local newspapers in 1904 and he was employed afterwards by the Taft press bureau in Washington by 1912, doing both still photography and cinematography work.
When war broke out in Europe in August 1914, Thompson was in Canada. He became representative for a Montreal newspaper and with official accreditation from the Canadian minister of militia, he sailed for Europe, arriving in Great Britain. He headed for Belgium, across the Channel, rather than for France. How he choose this destination is not clear, but luck was with him, for Belgian authorities were far less strict with war-reporters than their French counterparts. Once in Ostend Belgium, he met and partnered up with veteran American war correpsondent Edward Alexander Powell, both of them travelling to Antwerp, then under siege by German forces and temporary war-time seat of the Belgian government. His adventures during the siege of Antwerp, at times grossly exaggerated when author E. Alexander Powell was not personally at hand to corroborate them, but highly engrossing nonetheless, are delightfully told in Powell's book 'Fighting in Flanders'. The book, with photographs by Donald Thompson, was published in November 1914, almost immediately after the fall of Antwerp and retreat of the Belgians to the Yser Front. It was one of the war's first bestseller's and is still worth reading.
Being American, Thompson could at that time of the war, cross the battle-lines with relative ease and expect to be treated as a neutral by both Entente and German forces. He shot numerous photos of events in Belgium during 1914, from both Belgian and German perspective. Thompson was essentially a freelancer, selling his photographs and cinematographic footage to the highest bidders. At times he worked for E. Alexander Powell's newspaper, the 'New York World', but also for the 'London Daily Mail', the 'Chicago Tribune' and the 'London Illustrated News'.
Wounded at Dixmuide by a British shell in December 1914, Thompson returned to his hometown Topeka Kansas in January 1915 as something of a local hero. He showed moving-picture footage of front-line action to local acclaim and sell-out audiences. Soon afterwards in February he left for Russia with Robert McCormick, publisher of the 'Chicago Tribune'. They were with the Russian armies that took the Austrian fortress city of Przemysl in March 1915, witnessing the mass surrender of Austrian forces. Later both travelled along the Eastern Front and into the Carpathian mountains, where Thompson shot footage for a Chicago Tribune financed film called, 'With the Russians at the Front'.
By August 1915 he was back in the US, where he edited yet another hugely successful 90 minute film called 'Somewhere in France'. In 1916 Thompson joined the French army in Saloniki in Greece as official cimematographer and was later wounded in France during the battle of the Somme. Once again back in the US, he finished another box office hit, the film 'War as It Really Is'.
In late 1916 Thompson was employed by 'Leslie's Magazine', and left for Russia accompanied by another Leslie's staffer, Florence Harper. By way of China and across the Trans-Siberian railroad, they reached Petrograd and filmed the events and street-fighting that followed the February Revlution of 1917 and immediately preceeded the Russian October Revolution. 'Leslie's' published many of his Russian photographs and afterwards Thompson wrote 2 books about his Russian experience titled 'Blood Stained Russia'. and 'Donald Thompson in Russia'. After returning to the US, he once again finished a film called 'the German Curse in Russia' released in December 1917, right after the Russian Bolshevist Revolution.
After the war, Donald Thompson moved to Hollywood and continued to produce and make films, mostly travelogues, war films and adventure documentaries. In the 1930's he was unable to resist filming the Ethiopian campaign and the German annexation of Austria.
Relatively unknown now, during the Great War Thompson was a renowned and hugely successful war photographer. He shot thousands of stills and filmed many hours of war footage on moving film, at a time when obtaining combat footage, even behind the battlelines was considered to be a foolhardy but heroic way of making a living. Thompson, despite his boyish looks and slender build, was known as a flamboyant and daredevil character, almost always able to talk his way out of trouble with officials. He had a keen sense of what made news in the media and knew how to get it. He possesed stamina and a good dose of courage tempered by enough common sense to become one of America's most successful combat reporters during the war.
E. Alexander Powell sings his praises in 'Fighting in Flanders' but even so many of the stories attributed to Donald Thompson are certainly exaggerated, involving Russian countesses smuggling negatives to London, being 'adopted' by British soldiers during the battle at Mons, hoodwinking Germans during the siege at Antwerp and so on. He was not above wildly inflating combat casualties to impress readers nor did he apparently feel any compunction against holding back photographs and film footage from contractors if he felt he could get a better price for them elsewhere.
Even so, Donald Thompson was an admirable war-photographer whose war scenes were printed in newsmagazines world wide. He was one of the new breed of reporters whose motto was to go where the action is, as close to the fighting as possible, and to show modern warfare as realistically as possible.
* see also this link to a website on Donald Thompson's book 'Blood Stained Russia'
to a Gallery of Photographs by Donald Thompson
