Log Surfing
Tag: WWII
Touch The Hair And I Swing My Purse Of Bricks Your Way
Hanging Wet Children Out To Dry
Steel Teepee
Little Francis Albert
In truth, the eldest son holding both parents’ hands is not Frank Sinatra strolling the streets of Hoboken. It’s a portrait of post-war life, in the biggest Veterans’ Village in the United States, fresh out of the 1947 Oklahoma and Agricultural & Mechanical College yearbook. So if this man looks a bit too old for the university, it’s because he sacrificed part of his youth to serve in WWII, and now it was time to get his learnin’ on.
With the Baby Boom in full effect, veteran students needed houses for their growing families, located near campus. This is where the family lived.
Being With You, Being With You
Sharp-suited Sgt Franklin Williams enjoyed being on leave (and sharing a treat) with his best girl, Ellen Hardin, in Baltimore, 1942.
Precious Little Pre-WWII Graphs
I got my paws on a December 1939 Fortune magazine this week, which contained several interesting graph results of a readers’ poll. Keep in mind that there was no television then, no internet, no means of learning up-to-date war information other than radio or newspaper.
This question was: Which statement best represents your idea of Germany?
Most Americans believed that Germans were peace-loving, misled by ruthless rulers. Understanding that Hitler was the most ruthless of rulers, impending war led to this question.
I love the body language on these little black bodies. Yes, maybe, and hell to the no.
At this point, the four-term FDR was only in his second term, and readers had no way of knowing if he would go on to serve again. Look how cute they made the innacurately non-wheelchair-bound but accurately chainsmoking president look. Reports say he smoked 20-30 cigarettes per day! And as you recall, he did have polio, so he could not walk unassisted.
The last question simply asked if those polled wanted to keep FDR in the White House at all, which nearly half the readers did. And why not? Did you ever see a happier horse with a cigarette holder, swimming away from a crocodile?
I Pledge Allegiance To Pure Evil
I just got this February 3, 1941 copy of Life. I have TONS of Life magazines; I even have a room we call the “Life room” because it has glass cabinets housing piles of vintage mags. But I’d never seen this one. The U.S. was a few months shy of entering WWII at this point, but we were well aware of The Führer. Don’t you just wish you were there to smash his face in?
The frenzy caused by his presence is disturbing and unnerving. What brainwashing of a country to treat him as their savior.
Have you seen these images before? I hadn’t. Are those beaming teenagers still alive? Have they since seen themselves in these images, so joyful, so radiant, so hopeful? Little did they know.
Faith Under Fire
Early morning service on a coast guard ship in WWII
Major William F. Reiss, Chaplain, First Airborne Task Force (FABTF) leads G-2 Staff in prayers before departing for Southern France; picture taken at Voltone Airfield, Italy, 15 August 1944
The Chaplain of the 6th General Hospital (MTO 26 Dec 42 – 15 Sep 45) conducts a Baptism service, French Morocco, September 1943
“On 20th April, 1941, the morning after 150 incendiary bombs had gutted St. Bartholomew’s, East Ham a bride and groom arrived at the wrecked church. They found charred timbers and ravaged walls were all that was left of the church where they were to be married that day.
But Helen Fowler, aged 20 of Caledon Road, East Ham and her Canadian soldier sweetheart, Cpl. Christopher Morrison, aged 21 of the 48th Highlanders stood proudly amid the ruins of the bombed-out church and made their wedding vows, while fireman played their hoses on the wooden beams which were still smouldering.”
If you zoom out of the top picture, you can see the view of the sky above the ship.
Reality Of A 1942 Male College Graduate
Ode To The Class Of ’42
Germans Or Japs, Storms Or Ice
I Don't Get It 