Library of Congress Displays Rare 1939-42 Color Images
by Aero-News Senior Correspondent Kevin R.C. "Hognose"
O'Brien
One of the best reader responses we ever got was when we linked
to a library of rare French World War I color pictures, which
contained several aviation images, including a unique shot of a
Nieuport in color. The best thing was hearing from French readers
who didn't know about these national treasures until they read
about it with us. (One of them even knew what branch the officer's
uniform represented -- not aviation, oops).
Perhaps there's something special about color for my generation.
I'm old enough to remember when one network on TV started
broadcasting in color, and to me, the Vietnam war was the first one
shot in what NBC then called "living color." Sure, there were a few
pictures from World War II but there were not many, so you saw the
same ones over and over and over again. But that has changed; as we
go into the new century, more and more old color is turning up.
These pictures are from a Library of Congress exhibition. "Bound
for Glory: America in Color 1939-1943 is the first major exhibition
of the little known color images taken by photographers of the Farm
Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI)." The
Library has selected seventy transparencies from the vast store of
images taken on behalf of the New Deal agency and its wartime
successor, and they promise there will be more.
I can hardly wait. Like the French Great War images, these
pictures resulted from state of the art technology in the hands of
the era's best craftsmen, and like the French pictures, there are
aviation shots here that match artistic brilliance with monumental
historical significance.
Five of the pictures at the exhibition have strong aviation
content; these were all taken, as it happens, by Alfred T.
Palmer.
A picture of a P-51A Mustang (actually, I think it's a
Lend-Lease Mustang IA for the RAF, Model NA-91), cruising over
mountains near Inglewood, California, is one I haven't seen before.
The plane has a purposeful air that today's spit-shined warbirds
lack. There were fewer than 100 of this mark of Mustang built, and
none survive today; the four 20-mm cannon were ordered by the
British for ground-attack duty.
In another picture shot against a brilliant blue sky, an A20
Havoc is serviced by a swarm of mechanics at Langley Field,
Virginia. The Douglas A20 was built in many thousands and used by
the USA and extensively lend-leased to Britain, France and Russia.
You can just barely make out the tail of a B24 in the lower right
side of the image.
One that's going to send me to my references is identified as a
"Marine glider at Page Field -- Parris Island, South Carolina, May
1942." It shows a bright yellow training glider -- and while I know
a little about the Army Air Corps's gliders, I didn't even know
that Gyrenes ever glid.
There are two more aviation images not reproduced here -- one a
very atmospheric shot of a lady worker assembling a wing for a
Vultee Vengeance (a dive bomber lend-leased to Britain) and a
factory-floor shot from North American with a squadron of B-25s
under construction.
The photographers, the Library of Congress notes, were
originally supposed to document how badly the Depression had used
America, especially the rural Midwest. But a funny thing happened.
As the years wore on and the US recovered from the grim 1930s, the
photographers -- inadvertently -- documented an increasing
powerful, muscular, confident nation.
The exhibit, Bound for Glory, can be seen at the Library of
Congress through the 21st of January, after which it will go on the
road. You can find the schedule at the FMI Link. For those of us
who can't bust the DC ADIZ to see the exhibition, you can view all
60 images online at the same link. The aviation shots are near the
end, but every picture is rewarding to look at.
I'd be remiss if I did not credit the blog which pointed me to
this exhibit, which was The
Officers Club. Thanks, guys.
Finally -- once one has browsed the seventy stunning pictures of
the exhibit at the FMI link, or just scrolled to the end where the
aviation pictures are -- note that the Library of Congress has made
a few more than seventy pictures available. (The complete
collection of FSA/OWI photographs -- 171,000 black-and-white images
and 1,602 color images -- are available on the Library of Congress
website at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html.)
Alfred T. Palmer is well represented in the color collection with
329 photographs (there seem to be some duplicates); about a quarter
to a third of his work involves aircraft or aicraft production. And
that's just one photographer, and I haven't looked at his black and
whites. Yet.
Sorry about the work you thought you were going to get done
today.
ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (04.16.24)
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