Posted on 11/15/2010 8:08:42 PM PST by rlmorel
I was at my in-laws some time ago, and they brought out a bunch of boxes with images in them. We were looking over the family pictures, and I saw this small stack wrapped in brown paper. When I opened it, I found prints of the six images below. When I asked my mother-in-law where they came from, she said that she had worked at a drugstore in East Boston as a teenager in the mid to late forties. People brought film in to be developed all the time, and never came back to pick it up. They held onto some of them for years before they threw them out. She said she grabbed them with a bunch of other pictures as they were being thrown in the trash during an long-needed cleanup at the store. These were prints from what were probably original negatives I would guess.
What I found most interesting was the surrender scene. All this time I had it, I just assumed it was another angle from the Missouri Surrender ceremony, but when you really look at it, it isn't. There are no civilians, the weather is wrong and the ship looks older than the Missouri. Has anyone ever seen any of these images? Comments? I am very well versed on WWII history particularly in the Pacific Theater, and I don't recall ever seeing these pictures in any books I have ever read.
Wow to all of them.
Was it, or is it, common practice to setup a freaking zip line between 2 moving ships???
Those are definitely not photos I’ve seen before. They may be quite historically valuable. From the 74 on the deck, they appear to be from someone who served on the escort carrier Nehenta Bay. The aircraft in the third image are Grumman Avengers. The other aircraft are FM-2 Wildcats, which were the most common fighter on escort carriers.
If these are truly unique, consider donating copies to the naval archives.
The last photo looks like a local surrender ceremony. Possibly the captain of a Japanese ship or commander of a base.
The third photo may be during the typhoon of Dec 1944.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nehenta_Bay_(CVE-74)
Do you know anything about that sort of crash?........................Yeah, You can die a horrible death. Hopefully he got out before it blew.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nehenta_Bay_(CVE-74)
The carrier is the Nehenta Bay. Looks like you also have a pic of the December 44’ typhoon that Casablanca class aircraft carrier endured.
Amazing photos. The surrender is not the Missouri. The Missouri wasw much larger.
Interesting story there - they had not planned very well - and lacked a table large enough for the documents. They ended up unbolting a table from the mess (two maybe?). And then I think there was a story about the “table cloth” (curtains?) to cover the ugly mess table.
Interesting how what were “everyday” photos from some serviceman (men?) with a camera are now so heroic and historical.
Great photos . Thanks for posting.
Pretty common, I think. First they would send across mail, some other odds and ends, and then they would send a guy over. Think about it, if you are cruising towards a mission or objective, you can’t stop two ships dead to put a boat between them if someone had to get over. Nobody slows down.
I think...that is my interpretation.
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Bosun’s chair. It was the way people were transferred between ships then. I don’t believe it is common anymore.
Thanks for the tip, I may well do that. I will contact the US Naval Institute to see if they have any suggestions. (I think the US Navy would be too bureaucratic to deal with...)
. Escort carriers were used extensively in the later stages of the Pacific war, and the Nehenta Bay participated in several campaigns, culiminating in attacks on Okinawa and the Japanese Home Islands. She was decommissioned after the war and scrapped in 1960.
That’s what I thought. Great book, by the way, “Halsey’s Typhoon”.
absolutely. For mail.
Oh....I’m guessing this is moments before the real deal.
Too much Sr. horsepower to be ancillary. IMHO.
Agreed, I don’t think it is done nowadays other than a training exercise, if that. But back then, I am guessing it was very common during the war.
I just spent a half hour on Google Images looking for it...no luck.
Awesome pics!
Just hate it when that ‘wing off’ light never comes on.
It is clearly NOT the Missouri...I’ll post a few pics of that, and it is apparent.
Wow! Truly historical. Can’t tell which carrier is shown in the second photo, but definitely pre- 1956 without an angled deck.
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