This is a great story...
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an unbelieveable Batch of photos..
Back in the mid '70s when I was working at Hellers Camera in Bethesda Md. I
had a reference book with a color photo of the battleship Pennsylvania in an
advanced base sectional dock, somewhere in the Pacific in about 1944. The
quality of the photo made it clear that it was shot with a large format
camera, which puzzled me since I did not think Kodachrome (the only modern
color film of the time in the US) was available in sheet films. A guy I
worked with was an old Kodak hand (and WWII vet, a radioman in Europe) and
told me that they did have sheet Kodachrome, and that there was only one
machine to process the film, located in Rochester. The exposed film was sent
there for processing.
And note the almost complete lack of basic safety equipment. I saw only one
pair of safety glasses, and only a few of the workers were wearing gloves.
Working without gloves around sheet metal is an injury waiting to happen.
Notice most of the woman had lip stick and nail polish on. WWII could not
have been won without the woman of America stepping into men's shoes to
build the equipment needed to defeat the axis powers.
Fascinating! Some of these these images are 70 years old and look as fresh
as ever. If someone had told any of the subjects in these photos that we'd
have such a clear look at them in the year 2012... boggles my mind. Thought
you'd find this interesting !
1. "Where's Adolf?"
May 1942. Langley Field, Virginia. YB-17 bombardment squadron. "Hitler would like this man to go home and forget about the war. A good American non-com at the side machine gun of a huge YB-17 bomber is a man who knows his business and works hard at it." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
2.
October 1942. "Testing electric wiring at Douglas Aircraft Company. Long Beach, California." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
3.
October 1942. Engine installers at Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach, California. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
4.
October 1942. Experimental staff at the North American Aviation plant in Ingle- wood, Calif., observing wind tunnel tests on a model of the B-25 ("Billy Mitchell") bomber. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
5.
April 1943. Schoolchildren in San Augustine County, Texas. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by John Vachon, Office of War Information.
6.
February 1943. Working on the horizontal stabilizer of a "Vengeance" dive bomber at the Consolidated-Vultee plant in Nashville. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
7.
Long Beach, California. October 1942. "Annette del Sur publicizing salvage campaign in yard of Douglas Aircraft Company." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
8.
October 1942. Workers installing fixtures and assemblies in the tail section of a B-17F bomber at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant in Long Beach, California. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
9.
October 1942. "Lieutenant 'Mike' Hunter, Army test pilot assigned to Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
10.
October 1942. Inglewood, California. North American Aviation drill operator in the control surface department assembling horizontal stabilizer section of an airplane. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
11.
October 1942. Assembling switchboxes on the firewalls of B-25 bombers at North American Aviation's Inglewood, California, factory. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer, Office of War Information.
12.
October 1942. Inglewood, California. "Young woman employee of North American Aviation working over the landing gear mechanism of a P-51 fighter plane." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
13.
October 1942. Kansas City, Kansas. "B-25 bomber plane at North American Aviation being hauled along an outdoor assembly line." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
14.
June 1942. Engine inspector for North American Aviation at Long Beach, California. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
15.
June 1942. Inglewood, California. "Punching rivet holes in a frame member for a B-25 bomber at North American Aviation." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
16.
942. Inglewood, California. Riveting team working on the cockpit shell of a C-47 heavy transport at North American Aviation. "The versatile C-47 performs many important tasks for the Army. It ferries men and cargo across the oceans and mountains, tows gliders and brings paratroopers and their equipment to scenes of action." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
17.
June 1942. Crane operator at Tennessee Valley Authority's Douglas Dam. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the OWI.
18.
June 1942. Army tank driver at Fort Knox, Kentucky. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
19.
June 1942. Fort Knox, Kentucky. "Infantryman with halftrack. A young soldier sights his Garand rifle like an old-timer. He likes the piece for its fine firing qualities and its rugged, dependable mechanism." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
20.
Fort Knox, June 1942. "Light tank going through water obstacle." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer, Office of War Information.
21.
October 1942. "American mothers and sisters, like these women at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant in Long Beach, California, give important help in producing dependable planes for their men at the front." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
22.
March 1943. Yardmaster at Amarillo, Texas, railyard. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano, Office of War Information.
23.
February 1943. Lucille Mazurek, age 29, ex-housewife, husband going into the service. Working at the Heil and Co. factory in Milwaukee on blackout lamps to be used on Air Force gasoline trailers. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Howard R. Hollem for the Office of War Information.
24.
October 1942. Glenview, Illinois. "Transfusion bottles containing intravenous solution are given final inspection by Grace Kruger, one of many women employees at Baxter Laboratories. When her brother left Baxter to join the Merchant Marine, Miss Kruger, a former life insurance clerk, took his place." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Howard R. Hollem for the OWI.
25.
October 1942. Riveter at work on a bomber at the Consolidated Aircraft factory in Fort Worth. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Howard Hollem.
26.
October 1942. "Thousands of North American Aviation employees at Inglewood, California, look skyward as the bomber and fighter planes they helped build perform overhead during a lunch period air show. This plant produces the battle-tested B-25 'Billy Mitchell' bomber, used in General Doolittle's raid on Tokyo, and the P-51 'Mustang' fighter plane, which was first brought into prominence by the British raid on Dieppe." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
27.
August 1942. Corpus Christi, Texas. "After seven years in the Navy, J.D. Estes is considered an old sea salt by his mates at the Naval Air Base." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Howard Hollem, Office of War Information.
28.
August 1942. Mechanic Mary Josephine Farley works on a Wright Whirlwind motor in the Corpus Christi, Texas, Naval Air Base assembly and repairs shop. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Howard R. Hollem.
29.
August 1942. Corpus Christi, Texas. "Working inside the nose of a PBY, Elmer J. Pace is learning the construction of Navy planes. As a National Youth Administration trainee at the Naval Air Base, he gets practical experience. After about eight weeks, he will go into civil service as a sheet metal worker." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Howard R. Hollem.
30.
April 1943. "Mrs. Thelma Cuvage, working in the sand house at the Chicago & North Western R.R. roundhouse at Clinton, Iowa. Her job is to see that sand is sifted and cleaned for use in the locomotives. Mrs. Cuvage's husband works as a guard at the Savanna, Illinois, ordnance plant." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information.
31.
March 1943. "Santa Fe R.R. shops, Albuquerque. Hammering out a drawbar on the steam drop hammer in the blacksmith shop." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information.
32.
June 1942. Truck driver at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Douglas Dam. Amazing 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
33.
December 1942. A winter afternoon in the North Proviso yardmaster's office, Chicago & North Western Railroad. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. Click here for a closeup of the poster on the wall.
34.
December 1942. Three West Coast streamliners in the Chicago & North Western yards at Chicago. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.
35.
Shulman's Market at N and Union Street SW, Washington. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Louise Rosskam. Alternate view. In one of the many comments for this post, an alert FOS (Friend of Shorpy) points out the posters of Axis leaders Mussolini, Hitler and Admiral Yamamoto in the window. Along the bottom of each it says What do YOU say America?
36.
June 1942. Lockheed Vega aircraft plant at Burbank, California. "Hollywood missed a good bet when they overlooked this attractive aircraft worker, who is shown checking electrical sub-assemblies." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by David Bransby for the Office of War Information.
37.
October 1942. "Noontime rest for an assembly worker at the Long Beach, Calif., plant of Douglas Aircraft Company. Nacelle parts for a heavy bomber form the background." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
38.
September 1940. Jack Whinery, Pie Town, New Mexico, homesteader, with his wife and the youngest of his five children in their dirt-floor dugout home. Whinery homesteaded with no cash less than a year ago and does not have much equipment; consequently he and his family farm the slow, hard way, by hand. Main window of their dugout was made from the windshield of the worn-out car which brought this family to Pie Town from West Texas. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration.
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