Mystery Naval Photographer

[mothertrucker]

Hey Everyone, thought you would find this interesting. I have made some friends connected to the historical society in the city I'm living in, Peoria, Illinois.

Recently this friend of mine came across an antique store in Henry Illinois, with a few boxes of negatives. He brought one of the boxes over and we scanned them with my Pakon (what a great tool for running through a box of uncut negatives, let me tell you....)

You can imagine my delight when we saw the pictures of WWII naval ships, streets of Japan, and basically a compact story of this serviceman's time in the years 1939-1945.

Anyway, check it out at my website if you are interested:
http://www.argentography.com/2017/10/26/historical-adventures-through-photography/

 

[Alex Krasotkin]

Tnak you, Brian for a wonderful photostory. Such a great job you have done! My deep respect!
Alex

 

[Mr_Flibble]

Wonderful stuff!
I've shared the link to your site with some of my re-enactment / WWII History buddies. Perhaps they can shed some light on some of the subject matter for you.

 

[mothertrucker]

Awesome thanks for the share. The antique store owner contacted me too and it sounds like she's got a bunch more stuff and does in fact know the name - Bob Shelby. However, couldn't find anything from a google search yet.

 

[Ronald M]

One of those 90 day wonders.

It is very rare to see a navy officer in a green uniform. My father said they were somewhat common early 40`s. All our family photos were either dress whites or blues if winter.

 

[Mr_Flibble]

No problem. Someone from the WWII Research & Writing Center is already running with it now. I've provided her with the name.

 

[robert blu]

Great material, interesting story.
robert

 

[xayraa33]

A wonderful story in photos and a bit of a mystery to work out.

 

[Mlehrman]

What a fascinating account. From the initials on his cap, he might have been a member of Pi Kappa Phi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Kappa_Phi).

 

[Timmyjoe]

That's very cool, thanks for sharing.

 

[x-ray]

My father carried couple of cameras through WWII while stationed in Europe. I have quite a large number of images on the street in France, Belgium and England. There are many images of friends in uniform and just daily life both military and civilian. Some are 35mm he shot with a Russian Leica copy plus boxes of 6x9 glass plates shot with an Agfa folding camera if I remember correctly.

You never know what you'll find in antique shops. I purchased a beautiful and perfectly preserved photo album of San Francisco, the bay with steam ships and Oakland. The date in the album was 1901. There are quite a number of images of the 4th of July parade in downtown SF from a dignitaries box.

I found beautiful images of a barnstormer selling rides in his Wright Flyer B at a fair and my prize find, an original and quite famous original tintype shot by Mathew Brady of General George Armstrong Custer.

 

[Lux Optima]

Wonderful! Thank you! 🙂

 

[02Pilot]

Great photos. I can offer a little clarification on a few of them.

- The Japanese battlewagon is not on fire. Coal-fired boilers generated a lot of smoke, and you can see that the source of the smoke is concentrated at the funnel.

- The U.S. battleship appears to be an Iowa-class. The smoke on the left of the frame is probably the from the Japanese ship in the previous shot; you can see the superstructure of it behind the aft turret of the U.S. ship.

- The second to last of the shots from Hawaii appears to show the subject having new insignia pinned on by his comrades, indicating he's just been promoted.

- The large building in the last Hawaii shot is probably the Moana Hotel, built in 1901 and still standing.

I'll be interested to hear if more records can be found (IIRC, many WW2 service records were lost in a fire at the records center several decades ago).

 

[mothertrucker]

Awesome thanks 02pilot and everyone else for your stories and insights. I've always found this era just amazing. My grandfather had a lot of photos from his time stationed in England as an airplane mechanic. He worked on P-51's, B-24's and P38's there. After the war he spent time traveling around France and Switzerland. Pretty fascinating stuff.

When I first saw the picture of the Japanese battleship, I couldn't believe it, thinking it was on fire. But 02pilot you are right, it just smoked that much during normal operation. One of the articles I was reading talked about how the Japanese military tried to retrofit it so that the fumes did not gas out the Japanese sailors, but they were not very successful!

 

[mothertrucker]

my prize find, an original and quite famous original tintype shot by Mathew Brady of General George Armstrong Custer.

That's really incredible, what a treasure.

 

[FranZ]

Very nice series of photos.
The US Battleship appears to be the USS Missouri (BB63). I have a picture showing this ship with the same aerials as on your photo. From the total of 6 Iowa class battleships ordered, 4 (Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri and Wisconsin) eventually joined the US navy in WW2. The other 2 were scrapped incomplete. Largest US battleships ever (45.000 tons).

 

[oftheherd]

Fascinating photos and story. I have taken the liberty of posting the URL for this thread and your site on a martial art forum I frequent as well. There is a photography sub-forum there.

 

[mothertrucker]

No problem at all sharing the link. I’ve been talking with the owner of the antique store who bought these rolls of film at the estate of Bob Shelby (the photographer) and they got at least another box full. I can’t wait to fill in some of the gaps here. Also, the pics uploaded are just a small sample, I just wanted to get something up there to share.

 

[Beemermark]

The Japanese surrender papers were signed on the deck of the U.S.S Missouri.