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Frank E. "Pappy" Noel was an Associated Press photographer and the winner of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, the second winner of that prize.
Born in Dalhart, Texas, Noel began his career in photography at the Chicago Daily News in 1925. He served in the United States Army Air Corps as an Aerial Photography Instructor and worked as a photographer for the Washington Post, Wichita Eagle, Kansas City Star, and the Oklahoma City News. Noel joined the Associated Press in 1937 and would spend the rest of his career with that agency.
During World War II, Noel worked for the AP in the Pacific Theater. To escape the Japanese invasion of Singapore, a malaria-stricken Noel paid for passage on a British freighter bound for Rangoon, but the freighter was sunk by a Japanese torpedo. Noel was adrift in the Indian Ocean for three days when his lifeboat encountered another one. An Indian sailor in the other lifeboat asked them for water, but they had none as Noel's lifeboat was out of water as well. Noel took a picture of the sailor and it was published after his lifeboat was rescued two days later. The photograph, titled "Water!", won Noel the Pulitzer Prize. Later in the war, Noel covered the Malayan Campaign, Burma, and India for the AP.
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