From Out Of The Past... The History In Pictures Thread

[C. Lee]

Indian pilots before Battle of Britain, 1940

 

[C. Lee]

WWII — Soviet fighter pilot Lydia Litvyak and a Petlyakov Pe-2. She primarily flew a Yakovlev Yak-1. First female fighter ace in history, shooting down 12 German aircraft in 66 missions. She was shot down and killed at the Battle of Kursk in August 1943.

 

[C. Lee]

Eduardo Toda y Güell (Spanish Egyptologist, 1855-1941) who discovered and opened the intact tomb of Sennedjem, standing with ancient Egyptian mummies at Boulaq Museum, 1885

 

[C. Lee]

Aloha Wanderwell (born Idris Welsh; adopted name Idris Glacia Hall 13 October 1906 – 4 June 1996) was a Canadian-American internationalist, explorer, author, filmmaker, and aviatrix, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, who would later become a United States citizen. While still a teenager, she joined an expedition to travel around the world by Ford 1918 Model T, 1930 Model A, and a 1935 Touring Sedan — all Fords — and continuing to use Fords until her passing in 1996.

Aloha began her adventuring career when she met her traveling companion, Walter “Cap” Wanderwell, in 1922. They married in 1925 and had two children. As they continued to travel the world, Aloha performed on stage doing travel lectures while next to her a silent movie, “Car and Camera Around the World”, played. The Wanderwells recorded their world journeys on 35mm nitrate and 16mm film, which all reside in the vaults at The Academy Film Archives, Hollywood, California USA. While stranded in Brazil, she lived among the Bororo people and recorded the earliest film documentation of them for 6 weeks. In 1932, her husband was shot and killed on his yacht Carma in Long Beach, California. Aloha later married Walter Baker and continued her travels, ultimately visiting over 80 countries and six continents, and driving over 500,000 miles all in Fords.

 

[C. Lee]

Lee Miller was one of only four women war photographers accredited by the U.S. Army during the Second World War. The photo above is a self-portrait, showing her military helmet specially adapted for taking photos. She had been living in Europe since the 1920s. She had briefly been a model, but soon went to the other side of the camera, working with the Surrealists in Paris, particularly Man Ray.

Miller was in Britain at the start of the Second World War, and she documented the Home Front, and particularly the effect of the war on women as a photographer for British Vogue. Women’s role in society changed profoundly during WWII. Women signed up for war work, like during WWI, voluntarily at first. But in December 1941, conscription of women was introduced.

The horrors Miller witnessed in her war years marked her permanently and she withdrew from reportage photography after the war, and suffered from alcoholism and depression. Her war photos were almost forgotten until her son found them in the family attic after her death.

Lee Miller was one of only four women war photographers accredited by the U.S. Army during the Second World War. The photo above is a self-portrait, showing her military helmet specially adapted for taking photos. She had been living in Europe since the 1920s. She had briefly been a model, but soon went to the other side of the camera, working with the Surrealists in Paris, particularly Man Ray.

Miller was in Britain at the start of the Second World War, and she documented the Home Front, and particularly the effect of the war on women as a photographer for British Vogue. Women’s role in society changed profoundly during WWII. Women signed up for war work, like during WWI, voluntarily at first. But in December 1941, conscription of women was introduced.

 

[C. Lee]

Just after D-Day in 1944, Miller managed to get to the European Front and she documented the end of the war and its aftermath, particularly on women. Miller’s work is not all candid reportage photography, and she never forgot her Surrealist roots. One particularly evocative image is a self-portrait of her in Hitler’s bathtub in Munich, after the fall of the Nazi regime. Miller had just returned from the liberation of Dachau concentration camp, and her military-style boots are carefully arranged in front of the bath, with the mud from Dachau still visible on them.

The horrors Miller witnessed in her war years marked her permanently and she withdrew from reportage photography after the war, and suffered from alcoholism and depression. Her war photos were almost forgotten until her son found them in the family attic after her death.

 

[C. Lee]

Helen Summersby

Women had been banned from official, wheel-to-wheel motorsport competition since 1909. They were allowed to run in speed trials, during which they were the only car on the track, but not in actual races. However, in 1918, promoters had the idea of putting on women-only races, which circumvented the prospective scandal of women racing against men. The group of drivers hired to take part in these events became known as “The Speederettes”.

The first all-female race of this period took place in February, 1918, at Ascot Park, a dirt track in California. It was not a single event, but a series of speed trials and qualification sessions on Saturday, in support of a “big race” on Sunday. It was promoted as an exciting spectacle, and billed as a “Carnival of Femininity”. There were three main races and a series of support events, for large cars and cyclecars. Seven women are described as having taken part, but only five are regularly named: Mrs. PH Harmon (possibly Marmon), Mrs. CH Wolfeld, Ruth Weightman (also credited as Wightman), Helen Summersby, Mrs. Cecil George, Mrs. Bertie Priest and Nina Vitagliano.

 

[C. Lee]

Winston Churchill as a Cornet in the 4th Queen’s Hussar’s Cavalry, 1895. He was 21 at the time.

 

[C. Lee]

Ella Hattan, better known by her nom-de-guerre “Jaguarina,” was Colonel Thomas Monstery’s most accomplished student. Born in 1859 in Ohio, she would go on to become widely regarded as one of the greatest swordswomen of the nineteenth century, and perhaps of all time. Hattan would defeat more than sixty men in high-profile combats on both horseback and on foot; according to one major newspaper, more than half of these men were fencing masters.

For more details of Hattan’s extraordinary career, her training, and her lengthy master-student relationship with Monstery, see the following article:

http://martialartsnewyork.org/2015/03/31/colonel-thomas-monstery-and-the-training-of-jaguarina-americas-champion-swordswoman/

 

[C. Lee]

Josephine Baker posing with the military awards granted to her for her work for the French Resistance, ca. 1960, France

“During WW2 Josephine Baker worked as a French Resistance agent. As an entertainer, Baker had an excuse for moving around Europe, visiting neutral nations. She carried information for transmission to England, about airfields, harbors, and German troop concentrations in the West of France. Notes were written in invisible ink on Baker’s sheet music.Later in 1941, Baker and her entourage went to the French colonies in North Africa. The stated reason was Baker’s health (since she was recovering from another case of pneumonia) but the real reason was to continue helping the Resistance. From a base in Morocco, she made tours of Spain. She pinned notes with the information she gathered inside her underwear, counting on her celebrity to avoid a strip search.In Morocco Baker suffered a miscarriage. Baker, who’s health was already fragile, developed an infection so severe it required a hysterectomy. The infection spread and she developed peritonitis and then septicemia. After her recovery (which she continued to fall in and out of), Baker started touring to entertain British, French, and American soldiers in North Africa. After the war, Baker received the Croix de guerre and the Rosette de la Résistance military awards. She was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle. Lieutenant Jospehine Baker remains the only American-born woman to receive full French military honors at her funeral.”

 

[C. Lee]

Beatrice (Tilly) Shilling OBE PhD MSc CEng (8 March 1909 – 18 November 1990) was a British aeronautical engineer and motor racer. During World War II, she invented “Miss Shilling’s orifice”, a fix for the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines of the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire fighters, which could lose power or even completely cut-out during certain maneuverers; a significant disadvantage in combat.
Shilling raced motorcycles in the 1930s, and after the war raced automobiles.

 

[C. Lee]

12 snipers from the Soviet 3rd Shock Army with 775 confirmed kills. Germany, May 4th 1945.

Female snipers of the 3rd Shock Army, 1st Belorussian Front. The ‘Shock’ armies were created with the specific structure to engage and destroy significant enemy forces, and were reinforced with more armored and artillery assets than other combined arms armies. Where necessary the Shock armies were reinforced with mechanized, tank and cavalry formations and units.

The snipers in the picture:

First row – Guard Staff Sergeant, VN Stepanov: 20 kills, Guard Sgt JP Belousov: 80 kills, Guard Sgt AE Vinogradov: 83 kills.

Second row – Guard Lieutenant EK Zhibovskaya: 24 kills, Guard Sgt KF Marinkin: 79 kills, Guard Sgt OS Marenkina: 70 kills.

Third row – Guard Lieutenant NP Belobrova: 70 kills, Lieutenant N. Lobkovsky: 89 kills, Guard Lieutenant VI Artamonov: 89 kills, Guard Staff Sergeant MG Zubchenko: 83 kills.

Forth row – Guard Sergeant, NP Obukhov: 64 kills, Guard Sergeant, AR Belyakov 24 kills.

 

[C. Lee]

Captain Clark Gable and Captain William C. Calhoun, Jr. at the American Air Base in Polebrook, Northamptonshire after a B-17 Bomber mission to Antwerp with the 351st Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force, in which Gable flew as an Observer/Gunner. April 5, 1943.

 

[C. Lee]

Closeup of Lincoln during the construction of the Mt. Rushmore monument, 1937.

 

[C. Lee]

Eruption of Sakurajima volcano, the most powerful in twentieth-century Japan, with Kagoshima, Japan in foreground, 1914.

 

[C. Lee]

“The Gadget”, the first nuclear bomb detonated at the Trinity test site in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

 

[C. Lee]

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and senior members of the Kuomintang following their arrest by Marshal Zhang Xueliang, former warlord of Manchuria , Xi'an, China, c. 1936.

 

[C. Lee]

The 369th Infantry Regiment wearing the Cross of War medals as they travel back to New York. 1919

“Front row: Pvt. Ed Williams, Herbert Taylor, Pvt. Leon Fraitor, Pvt. Ralph Hawkins.

“Back Row: Sgt. HD Prinas, Sgt. Dan Storms, Pvt. Joe Williams, Pvt. Alfred Hanley, and Cpl. TW Taylor.

“The regiment was nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters, the Black Rattlers and the Men of Bronze, which was given to the regiment by the French. The nickname “Hellfighters” was given to them by the Germans due to their toughness and that they never lost a man through capture, lost a trench or a foot of ground to the enemy. The “Harlem Hellfighters” were the first all-black regiment who helped change the American public’s opinion on African American soldiers and paved the way for future black soldiers.”

 

[C. Lee]

French archeologist Joseph Hackin exploring The Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 1931.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

French archeologist Joseph Hackin exploring The Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 1931.

These were destroyed by the Taliban I believe.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

 

[C. Lee]

These were destroyed by the Taliban I believe.

I think so too. They destroyed a lott of things like that.

 

[C. Lee]

Minnie Spotted Wolf (1923–1988) was the first Native American woman to serve in the United States Marine Corps.

A member of the Blackfoot tribe, Spotted Wolf spent her childhood working on her father’s ranch in Heart Butte, Montana, where she cut fence posts, drove trucks and broke horses. She first expressed an interest in joining the army when she was aged 18, shortly after the US entered into World War 2 at the end of 1941. However she was initially discouraged by a recruitment officer who told her that the war was ‘not for women’.

Spotted Wolf was eventually accepted into the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve in July 1943, making her the first Native American female Marine. She almost did not accept the post as her father was dying from a horse riding accident, however her mother and sister strongly encouraged her to pursue her ambitions. She underwent rigorous boot camp training at Camp Lejeune, during which she gained 15 pounds of weight from the diet and rigorous exercise. She later described the training as “hard, but not too hard” given her background on the ranch.

On completion of her training Spotted Wolf went on to serve 4 years in the Marines in California and Hawaii. She drove trucks loaded with heavy equipment, a job normally reserved for men, and also sometimes worked as a jeep driver for visiting generals. Spotted Wolf’s career quickly gathered media attention and she was featured in numerous news stories, and even her own comic book, to promote the war effort.

Following her discharge in 1947, Spotted Wolf returned to Montana where she married a farmer named Robert England with whom she had four children. She attended college to qualify as a teacher and spent the next 29 years teaching in reservation schools. She died in 1988 aged 65 and was buried in her military uniform.

 

[C. Lee]

Sarla Thakral, first Indian woman pilot

 

[C. Lee]

Three Nurses Carry Babies Cocooned in Gas Masks During a Drill. London, 1940.