Well, you all (especially the ladies of you all) probably remember the hunka hunka burning WWII hotness that was Photo Friday last week...I told you at that point I'd grabbed all the war-era photos that were in that particular cigar box at a sale in Lockeland Springs last week. So guess what-- here's the rest of them! I have absolutely no context, but the photos were just too fascinating not to share in the end. Without further ado on this Friday morning, some snaps from the 1940's:
Isn't this the funniest set of couples? While the guy on the left looks handsome enough but very, very young, the guy on the right looks like iguana in the Laurence Harvey mold (who I'm still not entirely convinced is not part reptile himself). I wonder what the difference in the way they're wearing their hats makes on their service ranking (or does it? My dad would know)? Both the girlfriends appear to be in their thirties', but are no doubt much younger. Isn't it funny how pre-1970's girls always look fully grown at about the age of twelve, whereas dudes continue to be little dweebazons sometimes well into their thirties'. See the women's huge clutch bags and adorable dresses. I'm particularly fond of the quarter sized polka dots on the woman at right's dress. I wonder if either pair of these sweethearts got married!
This I love, as it looks like something directly out of a Ken Burns slow pan:
These two enlisteds are standing in front of a drug store and a sandwich shop in the city square of some small town...some of the notations from other pictures show that at least one of the guys pictured here is from Jasper, TN; but this may just be a town near their training base where they're on leave. I bought a coat exactly like either of these in high school at Music City Thrift for twenty dollars... heavy, olive drab with a brown-cast-to-it wool and cloth covered buttons that were stamped "PARIS" on the backs of them, with a oatmeal-with-brown-striped linen lining. My pappy, the WWII expert, said it was probably from Europe in the fifties', but was made to the exact specifications of this wartime-era coat. Matthew looks like a tiny Douglas MacArthur everytime he wears it (when I allow him to wear it, haha)...all he's missing are the jackboots! Don't these gents look dashing? Doesn't the guy on the right look a little like Clinton?
What's more impressive than driving a fully loaded 1944 Cadillac into the town square? Driving a fully loaded military vehicle into the square for a night on the town! Look at the sweet guy standing in front of the drug store (probably the same one from the Clinton picture). Can you see the old fashioned penny scale in the background?
Watch out, gals! There's some naked-to-the-waist men in the next shot!
Told you. Look how tough these customers look! I love the loose cut of their standard issue khakis and the "What?! What now?!" body language of either.
In comparison to the raw strips of beef jerky in the last picture, we have an Andy Hardy type, who may be the guy on the double date with Laurence Harvey from the first picture. I'm not sure:
On the left, all civilian clothes plus a weird hat...on the right, full soldier clothes amongst civilians. Why does the one on the right look weirdly ominous?
Hey! Wartime years weren't all work and no play! Look at these goofsters! Could you actually die on account of how cute these guys look? This picture was torn from a larger one...we can only guess what mischief the redacted subjects of the larger print were up to.
Last but not least, I hate that Photoshop has murdered the old-timey doodle tradition of cutting out someone's face/body/etc from a larger picture and scribbling some funny jibberish around it. I have several scrapbooks where some wag has added horns/wings/webbed feet to an innocent, unsuspecting Kodak subject. This guy is apparently bindle-staffing back to Jasper, TN, and with the way you people have treated him, I don't blame him a bit! See how cartoonishly "off" the proportions are. I couldn't resist.
Well, hope you enjoyed a little history lesson first thing in the morning! Do you know anything about these pictures that would put them in better perspective owing to your fine knowledge of WWII clothes? Do you have any pictures of your parents or grandparents (or, as in my case, someone else's parents or grandparents) in wartime years that are either adorable or funny or stately? Do tell!
Have a great weekend, find GREAT STUFF, and I'll see you right back here on Monday. Til then!
hey! i have the whole picture of those guys goofing off! it is a little picture and i think they were blow up for that close up. I'll scan it and send it to you! i can't resist people goofing off in old photos. i love the war era stuff too. those hats!
ReplyDeleteWe are ladies of similar taste, haha! I would love to see "the rest of the story". :)
DeleteWell, since you asked. Just a few weeks ago my mom and I were looking for her tiara wedding veil she had stored in a box in her closet. I reached for the one she said contained it and instead uncovered a box of my father's relics. Some of the relics were from his war years. My mother claimed she never saw this box. How could that be? He passed away 18 years ago. She never opened the box in 66 years? I amount it to the fact he probably told her not to open it and she respected the command. Not me! I had to see what was in there! Birth certificates from the old country, report cards, passport, WWII medals and pins, dog tags, a few letters, address and autograph books and an envelop of black and whites of the Pacific theater, specifically Manila and other areas of Luzon. These were a tad gruesome by the standards of the 1940s for sure. These photos I am convinced was the reason the box was off limits. My dad never spoke of the war much, except when he had some nightmares in his sleep and on occasion tired to choke my mom in the middle of the night. I left the box at my mom's for now. I will leave it for a later date. As for the wedding veil? Yes, we found that too. After 66 years, it still looks pretty grand as the day she wore it. Thanks for letting me share this. As always, your posts are a joy to read and allow me to share my thoughts on this era very dear to me.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it strange to think about people "compartmentalizing" parts of their lives like that, especially war veterans. I can't imagine, sometimes, how people who had to see such awful things can go on with their lives like normal when they get home. I guess it makes them that much more grateful that they're able to *be* home. That's an amazing discovery, though. I'm glad you guys found the veil, too. I wonder what it'll be like trying to find things in my house 66 years from now! Probably a hundred times more impossible than it is now!
DeleteI met a LOT of vets working as a nurse. I took care of a hypoxic old gent once, he was completely blue! He slumped over in his bed, called the nurses nasty, obscene names in a gasping voice. No one wanted to go near the old...darling. He was about the right age, so I asked him if he were a veteran. He snapped straight up and started telling me about his life as a pilot flying bombing missions in WWII. Lisa, the man had been in on the bombing of Casino Abbey in Italy. He reeled off his orders, bombing coordinates, mission, it was really something. His eyes scanned the horizon for enemy planes the entire time. He was re-living the event. And I could SEE it, too!
ReplyDeleteSo I told him about a memoir I read, written by an infantryman that had gone up to Casino after the bombing mission. This soldier found a piece of wood laying in the bombed out wreckage of the abbey. For some reason he packed this wood out of there, all of the way back home to the US. A craftsman made this wood into a violin. It had an exceptionally sweet tone because the wood was so old, heartwood that had been a beam in an ancient monastery.