1940s Photo Album with Candid Images of Young Sailors in Hawai’i and Japan During and After World War II.
United States and Japan: 1940s. Photo album measuring 10 ½ x 13 inches containing approximately 350 photos. With four copies of Jane Whitaker’s discharge and immunization papers and the Navy’s Marching to Victory songbook, 13th printing (Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s School, 1943). Album with covers detached and wear to pages; fair. Contents excellent. Overall very good. Item #List3520
A photo album belonging to siblings Jane (1924–d.) and James (1921–1997) Whitaker of Florida. Both siblings were in the US Navy; the copy of Jane’s discharge paper indicates that she enlisted in 1943 and was honorably discharged in 1946. The siblings are descendants of founding Florida figures William Wyatt and Mary Wyatt Whitaker.
The album mainly covers their time in Hawai’i and Japan. Alongside eighteen photographs of a large military parade, one labeled “V-J Day Honolulu” (with floats including the Filipino Federation of America’s celebration of General MacArthur and a bilingual float reading “AGGRESSORS GONE FOREVER”), and fifteen likely souvenir photos of the Pearl Harbor attack, there are approximately 120 candid photographs of the sailors’ lives. These include spending time with family and children, sitting on a tank on the beach, barbecuing at a park, fishing, and doing laundry outside. Some of these were taken in Hawai’i and others in Japan; a number show a sign for Nimitz Recreation Field, which is likely at the US Fleet Activities in Sasebo, Nagasaki. Thirty show men not in uniform but also likely sailors, mainly during similar recreational activities. Others include photos of military installations, and from inside barracks—bunk beds, the kitchenette, and dining area. Individuals in the photos are occasionally identified verso by first name.
The album is uncommon for the candid nature of the personnel photos. Of interest to historians of life in the US Navy in Hawai’i and Japan during WWII.
Price: $950.00