American Historical Ephemera & Photography

Original leather album, 7 1/4 x 11 1/4 in., embossed in gilt, string tied, containing 190 original silver gelatin photographs ranging in size from approx. 2 1/2 x 4 in. to 3 x 4 1/2 in., and are displayed in corner mounts. The first half of the album is extensively captioned in white ink.

An extensive record of American military and local life in New Guinea and the Philippines during World War II from the perspective of an Indiana private. The first two photos comprise group portraits of two platoons on KP duty at Ft. Benjamin Harrison, IN, in September and October 1943; the preponderance of photos, however, is from 1944 and 1945. The first series of images depict the enlisted men and several scenes of their base at Oro Bay, New Guinea. These include portraits, activities about the camp (including a snail hunt and an Easter service), and many images of natives, their villages, and children, some of whom, according to the captions, are afflicted with malaria. The majority of the album chronicles experiences in Tacloban, wider Leyte, and nearby areas of the Philippines. Though there are some portraits and images of army men at work, most of the photos record the city, its architecture, and surroundings, and include numerous shots of locals, their activities, and their environment. There are also several photographs of the newly built MacArthur School, and agricultural and river scenes. Several of the captions are less than kind, such as two striking images of downed warplanes in New Guinea with the caption “Two Less Japs," a page of pictures of half-clothed New Guinean women referred to as "some of the local belles," and a reference to Tacloban as "the so-called town." Nevertheless, this is an album that represents an excellent photographic record of military and native life in New Guinea and Leyte during the war.