I like the way the future happens in front of other stuff... like today and yesterday.
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“Miniature...
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Melvin Dwork 1943 via MSNBC PhotoBlog. Expelled from the Navy as “undesirable”, his discharge has just been changed to “honorable”, retroactive to 1944. The Board for Corrections of Naval Records said they made the change “in the interest of justice.” That has a lovely ring to it! The SLDN believes he’s the first WW2 veteran to succeed. He will finally receive his GI benefits.
Hawks on the Hunt (by Hawk914). Three Kittyhawk I planes from the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) No. 111 (Fighter) Squadron on patrol in Alaskan skies 1942.
Enjoying an ice cream atop a marine mine. via ADiamondFellFromTheSky
Members of the Tuskegee Airmen 332nd Fighter Group attending a briefing in Ramitelli, Italy, 1945. Photo by Toni Frissell via trialsanderrors.
Another beautiful pic by Toni Frissell.
Robert W Williams, Ottumwa, IA, Class 44-E (leather cap); William H. Holloman, III, St Louis, MO, Class 44-? (cloth cap); Ronald W. Reeves, Washington, DC, Class 44-G (leather cap); Christopher W Newman, St Louis, MO, Class 43-I (flight cap); Walter M Downs, New Orleans, LA, Class 43-B.
Nancy Love at the controls of a B-17 Flying Fortress. She was an American pilot and commander of a squadron that would later become the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during WW2.
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If you don’t know about “Razzle Dazzle” camouflage you should look it up.
HMS Argus, 1917
It must have been amazing to see a bunch of these ships together. Dazzle camouflage, also known by the very fun name Razzle Dazzle, wasn’t meant to conceal, but to disorient. During WW1 and WW2 visual rangefinders were used to determine the distance of a target. Dazzle patterns made it tough to do that. It also made it difficult to estimate the type and size of the ship, as well as determine its speed and heading. Is that the stern or the bow? Is that thing moving away or is it getting closer?
Dazzle was the brainstorm of Norman Wilkinson, a navy lieutenant and marine artist. The process of creating an effective dazzle and actually getting it on the ship is fascinating. Model ships were built and painted with different dazzle patterns. The model was mounted on a turntable and a canvas with different colored skies was mounted on rollers. The designer examined the model ship through a periscope, flipping through the various colored skies and moving the model around to determine the most effective dazzle patterns. Then the pattern was drafted onto a diagram of the ship and finally they’d begin the huge process of painting the dazzle on the ship.
Check out Roy Behrens’ interesting article on dazzle camouflage.
Troopship HMS Empress of Russia
USS Charles S. Sperry
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25 Abandoned Yugoslavia Monuments that look like they’re from the Future
Monumental sculptures built in the 60s and 70s to commemorate sites of WWII battles and concentration camps in Yugoslavia.
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An Air Transport Command Airplane Flies Over The Pyramids During World War II, 1943
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A photograph of the Semel family Wien, Austria.
From Yad Vashem, a living memorial to the Holocaust.
Founded in 1953, Yad Vashem is a living memorial to the Holocaust. It serves as a world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration. Recently, they began work with Google to preserve and provide access to the world’s largest photo archive related to the Holocaust.
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Women firefighters try to put out a fire after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
