Alva Alegre took every opportunity to shoot in and around London while on pass. His images capture wartime London as seen in 1944, at a time when the Luftwaffe was still a real threat to the civilian population. Please enjoy the view through Alva’s lens as he travels throughout the city of London!
Alva and Muse
The Royal Arcade
Close Up View of Sign
Members of the 12th Veterinarian Hospital
Straight from the bowels of a poorly listed eBay auction comes this tantalizing pair of WWI photographs. At first glance the images seem to contain little information to help aide in their historical dissection, but upon further sleuthing I found some clues to their identification. After scanning the first image on my super-duper Epson V700 scanner (awesome BTW), I zoomed in on the wagon using Photoshop. The name VET HOSP 12 can be faintly seen between the wagon wheels. A quick google search yielded a website dedicated to the 12th Veterinarian Hospital, which dealt with the care of horses during the Occupation period. I looks like the hospital was started in late December of 1918, and continued to service 3rd Army horses for the bulk of the Occupation.
The obverse of the second RPPC shows a date and location of January 1st 1919 in Treves Germany made out to a Mr.Arthur Fessler (hard to make out the last letter) in Philadelphia, PA. The card is a German postcard paper, and the style of chair is one I see almost exclusively used in German portrait studios of the period. The young doughboy is not wearing a shoulder sleeve insignia (aka Patch) but I assume he soon received one, as the first photo shows the patch in wear.
Interested in learning more about the 12th Veterinarian Hospital? Check out this site:
Or check out the U.S. Army Veterinarian Corps Historical Preservation Group Facebook page:
Posing in a German Studio
As I’ve mentioned before, one of my favorite areas of collecting is the mascot photo. Almost every unit had a mascot; commonly a dog or puppy, or sometimes a woebegone French or Belgian child. In this case, a young boy poses in a well-tailored uniform as the mascot for the 31st Engineer Regiment. What a stellar find!
August 25th, 1944,
Glenn Miller poses with some members of the 388th Bomb Group. Only a few months later Miller went missing during a flight over the English Channel,. spurring 70 years of mystery and intrigue. His death is still an unknown, although many suggest that he was in fact a German spy. The second image shows the crowd during the concert – snapped by Alegre from the front of the stage.
Some of Glenn’s best known hits are Moonlight Serenade, Chattanooga Choo Choo, A String of Pearls, Little Brown Jug and Tuxedo Junction. Many of these songs are likely lost on my generation, but will be familiar to many of the readers of this blog. Please check out the links listed below for some vintage Glenn Miller footage!
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Work Horses Plow a Field
Windswept Nurse
Alva spins a spit!
Seated Pose
A Barracks Fistfight
Sometimes a true gem will turn up among the pages of boring WWI eBay listings. In this case I was able to purchase a small lot of photos and letters for less than $10, and discovered an amazing field written poem by a battalion runner in the 103rd Infantry Regiment of the 26th “Yankee Division” (my favorite division BTW). Although the photos that came with the grouping are unrelated to the 103rd, I thought I would post the poem and transcription as a memorial to all those who died in the trenches of France. Memorial Day is only a few days away and I think it is a fitting tribute to the men and women who served during the First World War.
Please visit Soldier’s Mail for other photos and interpretations of further 103rd Infantry Regiment related material.
Written at Apremont France by Battalion Runner Blanchard of Company F of the 103rd Infantry Regiment of the 26th Division
Somewhere in France
I
A soldier boy lay dying,
On a road “somewhere in France;”
he had tried to get through a barrage
Tho he knew he stood no chance.
A pal knelt down beside him
While the tears ran down his cheek
For this soldier was his lifelong friend
And he longed to hear him speak.
II
When the dying soldier opened
Up his eyes, and look around
And saw his dear old pal
Kneeling side him on the grounf
He smiled and said “They got me Jim
Yes got me with a shell.”
“My orders were to take this note
Through water, fire and hell.”
III
“Take this message Jim and run it thru
Do not stop for me
It means two hundred lives and more
Its for our company
Fritz made a fake attack this morn
Just it break o’ day
If you can only get it rhu
We’ll make those dam Huns pay”
IV
“And when you get around to it
Just write a line or two,
To my mother and my sweetheart Jim
Old pay so good and true;
Tell them I tried to make it
Thru gas, barrage, and shell
That my resting place is heaven
For I when there thru a hell.”
V
Then the dying soldier closed his eyes
His pal with tender care,
Gently laid him down
And smoothed his bloody ruffled hair,
And with a sob of anguish
He started down the road,
In his hand he held the message
That was written out in code.
VI
Jim got the message there in time
To quell the Germans’ bluff,
He told the story to the boys
How the blood got on his cuff,
The dying words of Bill his pal
A runner dead and gone
And the company paid their last respects
To the brave but silent form.
~Wrote at Apremont by Batt. Runner Blanchard
At the conclusion of a dream – YD Co. F 103. Inf.
Earl Denzil Reese
Memoir Collection
I recently purchased a mystery grouping of WWII photos off my favorite internet auction site and stumbled across the wonderful story of Earl Reese and his wartime experiences while with the 99th “Checkerboard” Division during WWII. The full story starts out on a sad note, but I hope to honor Earl and his life achievements by publishing his story here on PortraitsofWar.
Earl Reese ca.1980
After purchasing a grouping of 50+ images from an eBay dealer back in April, I became interested in the details pertaining to the man who took the photos. He had a knack for writing blurbs on the back of photos, something not many soldiers did at the time. The content was first rate; the unknown soldier seemed to be in a front line unit that saw a good amount of action. I contacted the seller in hopes of finding some additional information to help me piece together the identity of the unknown GI. I’ve done this in the past with varying amounts of success. Most of the time the seller knows nothing about the photos, or maybe only a first name or general geographical area the fellow was from. In this case, the seller had a small treasure trove of information about the soldier.
Earl in 1945
After attending an estate sale in Santa Barbara the friendly eBay seller was rummaging around through some paper bins outside and found the life memoirs and photos of Mr.Reese. Some family member or estate executor threw away the entire life work and memories of Earl! He generously sent me the complete memoir manuscript and photo collection as a gift. I plan on digitizing the wartime section of the memoirs, which constitute three or four chapters of the 30+ volume.
Ridin’ Tanks
Crossing the DanubeCombat!
Earl Rides an M8 Greyhound
Germans Surrender on Motorcycles
Ruhr Pocket Battle Rest
In the Ruhr Pocket
Earl Snaps a Photo in Neustadt Germany
Color war photos are one of my favorite forms of amateur photography. The history behind each image is intensified when documented in color, allowing the historian to glean historical details not visible in B/W photography. One such image can be found below, from my collection of images taken in Roswell New Mexico right after WWII. The photos were taken by a member of the 509th Composite Group. The unit was responsible for dealing with the atomic weapons of WWII and also dropped a bomb on the Bikini Atoll in 1946.
The QB-17 shown below is possibly one of the first handful of B-17’s outfitted to fly unmanned. This plane was used to fly through an atomic cloud and collect important radiation data. These data were later used to test for radiation fallout numbers. I’ve only personally seen two other color images of a QB-17 painted in this scheme. What an important resource for historians, hobbyists, and vintage photography collectors!
Front Page of Drone Unit History
Back Cover of Drone Unit History
A wonderfully inexpensive eBay purchase turns out to be a WWI tanker! I purchased the photo simply on its merits as a portrait, but upon further inspection I can see that he is wearing the collar insignia of a tanker. A very cool find! 
Portraits of War 
