Item #852 1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM
1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM

1943-1945 US ARMY AIR FORCES - INDIA and STATE SIDE - VJ DAY - PHOTO ALBUM

Item #852

Carefully annotated 14 x 11 x 1 photo album: 420 black-and-white and sepia photos, both landscape and portrait; 1 larger hand-tinted photo; 30 leaves (60 pages) - 1 detached, 8 half-attached; 4 pages blank.

The lace-bound album is mostly in good condition, though a chunk is missing from the upper-left corner of the front cover.

The album documents the training of 3 or 4 airmen recruited in early 1943, and their service at various training facilities and airfields in numerous western states. Several pages show the fellows enjoying a 3-day leave in Hollywood (the Pantages Theater, NBC studios) and on an additional furlough made a trip to the Salton Sea (where they visited the “Hotel Empress of Britain”, part of the set of Billy Wilder’s high-adventure film ‘Five Graves to Cairo’, which had come out in May of that year (akin to the ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ of its time).

The first 24 pages take place in the U.S., and each photo is carefully annotated in white ink. Most pages contain a larger annotation: “U.S. Army Air Forces”. Page 25 abruptly takes us to Calcutta, India, towards war’s end; evidently these soldiers served in the Pacific Theater. Page 30 commemorates Victory in Japan Day and the attendant celebrations; this is the last annotated page - evidently the veteran intended to annotate the latter half of the album, having carefully filled it with pictures from India, but never got around to finishing the task. Page 34 is blank, as are the last three.
Pages 10 and 38 are each missing one photograph.

It is a shame the second half lacks description, as the aircraft, landscapes and personages depicted are fascinating: one even shows Mohandas Gandhi, walking with dignitaries, photographed from only a few feet away.

The tabs are mostly silver or black; several pages have white tabs. Three pages have gold tabs and six have tabs with a French-style tricolor design.

2 tucked-in ephemera:

1 diner-style placemat advertising a rodeo at the Boston Garden featuring Gene Autry and his horse Champion “in person”, dated but no year listed.

1 folded copy of Volume 1 of the Pendleton (Oregon) Field Plane Talk, dated 26th January 1943. The newspaper features a portrait of an actress scheduled to perform at the Pendleton air base some days hence, in a show titled “Hollywood Follies”; two-more pin-up queens featured in beach garb, captioned with typical soldier-boy descriptors; advertisements featuring local businesses; a ‘Terry and the Pirates’ strip by the great Milton Caniff, involving gas-mask training; several gag cartoons, one featuring anti-Japanese racism typical of the time; and a quiz involving the profile of two bomber planes (“Which one would YOU fire at?”).
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Price: $400.00

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