Refugees Cross Broken Bridge: Korean War's Human Cost
Max Desfor waded into freezing water with his camera as hundreds of North Koreans crawled across twisted steel girders—all that remained of a bombed railroad bridge over the Taedong River. Chinese forces were hours behind them. Parents passed children hand-to-hand above the ice. One woman carried her belongings in her teeth. Desfor shot eighteen frames before his hands went numb. The image won the Pulitzer, but it haunted him: he never learned if the people in his photograph survived. The bridge, near Pyongyang, was destroyed again weeks later.
December 4, 1950
76 years ago
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