Seoul, South Korea, September 1959: Children carefully paint the features on puppets in one of the classroom of the Seoul Children’s home. The girls live at the orphanage together with some 250 other war orphans. The home — originally named Munske Orphanage and founded by Col. Charles A. Munske in July 1951 — was set up with the aid of United States and United Nations servicemen for children often found wandering the battle fields. In 1952 the orphanage was nationalized under the Ministry of Health and Social Services and renamed. In 1955 the home was moved to its current location and the children were housed in tents until the new buildings were completed in August 1957.

Pictured here is a scan of the original 1959 print created by Stars and Stripes Pacific’s photo department to run in the print newspaper. The red marks indicate the crop lines. Only the middle part of the image would appear in the newspaper. As the vast majority of pre-1964 Stars and Stripes Pacific negatives and slides were unwittingly destroyed by poor temporary storage in 1963, the prints developed from the late 1940s through 1963 are the only images left of Stripes’ news photography from those decades — with the exception the negatives of some 190 pre-1964 photo assignment found recently. Stars and Stripes’ archives team is scanning these prints and negatives to ensure their preservation.

Stars and Stripes’ Pacific archives house many images of South Korean children affected by the Korean War. Many are of orphans living in homes founded and/or funded by either U.S. servicemembers or the United Nations. Also found in our archives are images of so-called “Unit Mascots,” children orphaned by the war who were “adopted” by U.S. military units. The children would live on base or in camp with the unit and were often outfitted in smaller versions of the unit’s uniform. Some ended up being legally adopted by a servicemember and went on to live in America.