Military Images Magazine Has New Publisher

The venerable history journal Military Images (MI)changed ownership in June. Philip Katcher acquired MI from Harry Roach, who founded the publication in 1979. The two historians are long-time friends.

The author of numerous books on military history, Katcher had served as Book Review Editor at MI since its inception. He has been a frequent contributor of articles to it and other publications. He retired recently from a career at Chilton Publishing.

Roach, formerly a research historian with the National Park Service, left the park service in 1978 to start MI. "Publishing the magazine has been one of my most rewarding experiences. But after producing 127 issues, I felt it was time for someone with new ideas and new enthusiasms to take the editor's chair," said Roach. "Phil is highly qualified to fill the position; he has great depth in both publishing and military history. I'm not disappearing, however. I'll be consulting with Phil on acquisitions, developing new material for the magazine." Katcher wants to increase the size of the magazine and expand the website.

"Among other things, I want to put a complete index of MI's images on line as an aid to researchers. I see expanding the publication into other areas as well, but basically I plan to continue building on the strong platform Harry created," he said.

Both men are Vietnam veterans and both started reenacting in the 1960s, Katcher in the 27th Virginia and Roach in the 150th Pennsylvania. Roach joined the 4th Texas in 1977 and Katcher followed in 1980. Katcher is still active, though Roach left reenacting in 1996.

The new address for Military Images is P.O. Box 2391, Southeastern PA 19399, with the e-mail address milimage@yahoo.com. The company's web site remains civilwar-photos.com.