Heroes of the USS Grunion: WWII Sub Found

In the news today there are stories of the USS Grunion, a US submarine that was sunk off the Aleutian Islands in July 1942. Seventy crew members died in the sinking.

For 66 years the sub sat on the ocean floor, a tomb to its crew. However, the US Navy never knew what happened to the Grunion. It was ordered to return to base after sinking several Japanese craft, but did not respond. It was never heard from again, leaving family members to wonder about the fate of their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons.

The sub was found last month by an expedition funded by the sons of the sub's captain. It is a compelling story. Out of curiosity, I googled the USS Grunion and found several sites devoted to it. One site carries a list of the crew members and photos of them. I looked at several pictures at random. The men were mostly young and handsome. It is sad that they did not get to live out their lives and raise families and have careers. They died so the rest of us good enjoy normal lives.

One of the photos I looked at was of seaman Richard Harry Caroll. I noticed that the only photo of him was taken from a newspaper and is very grainy and indistinct. I figured he deserves a better memorial than that and resolved to try and photoshop his picture to create a more realistic and lifelike image of this American sailor. If I succeed, I'll post it here and also forward it to the website in case they want to use it.

So I will spend 2 or 3 hours patiently retouching and colorizing the picture. It's the least I can do for Richard Carroll. Men like these make me feel that my own life isn't worth spit compared to theirs. Their lives were short but meaningful. They are the waves in Old Glory as she floats in the breeze, the notes in the bugle song called Taps, the rays in the sunrise over Washington, D.C., the threads in the great tapestry that is America. May we be worthy of their sacrifice.

UPDATE 4: I lied. Now I have added some detail to the ears to make them appear more lifelike. Before they were just white ovals. I used the pencil tool and the blur tool, and finished it off with the healing brush.

UPDATE 3: I added all of the enhancements I describe below as still needed. Now, I quit!

UPDATE 2: Never say die. Today I did some research on the internet about removing the cross-hatch pattern from a newspaper photo. I used the Gaussian blur in the filter section to take out most of the cross-hatch; then I used the Surface blur to complete the process. This made the image look much better. I then cleaned it up with the brush tool, the cloning tool and the healing brush. I overlaid the hair with some brush strokes to give a realistic appearance to the hairline. Since the right ear (left to us) was obliterated by noise, I copied the left ear, flipped it, and moved it into place. Finally, I put some painted eyeballs in as the originals were too blurry to repair, with some light highlights similar to the original.

Okay, now I really am partially satisfied. I think the Photoshop captures the true essence of Seaman Richard Harry Carroll and presents a much more distinct image of the man. What a handsome guy he was. However, it isn't perfect. I need to make his cheeks slightly rounder, especially his right cheek (on our left); refocus the eyes to look straight ahead and add eyelids; shorten his chin by a smidgen; and fix the white stripes of his uniform so they are broader and flow better. I think I see faint smile lines around the mouth in the original, so I need to put them into the Photoshop as well. One last thing: I need to make his eyebrows wider; they are thinner than the original and that won't do.

I'm somewhat of a perfectionist. Perfection is impossible to attain, but I will try harder and the above Photoshop may evolve over time.

FIRST UPDATE (now superceded): I gave it quite an effort, trying to reproduce Seaman Carroll in a Photoshop. It's above left [now replaced by black and white version]. I can't say I'm satisfied with it. I wasn't able to capture his essence sufficiently. The eyes, nose and mouth are not true enough.

Trying to repair a photo in as bad a shape as the original (above right) is a lot harder than I thought. In order to do it, you have to digitally repaint a lot of the photo and some artistic license is required. I don't have a license so I guess that explains it.

I won't give up though. I learn a lot by doing projects like this and each effort gets a little better. So I'll take Seaman Carroll's characteristics one at a time and will keep at it til I get it right. Stay tuned.