Hunter Corporal Duncan (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Oblong folio. Measuring 15" x 11". Screw bound black leather over stiff paper boards with "Aloha Hawaii" stamped on the front board. Contains 600 black and white or sepia-toned gelatin silver photographs measuring between 1" x 1" and 8" x 10", with captions. Good only album with detached but present pages, worn edges, and chips with near fine photographs. A photo album following Corporal Duncan Hunter's military career in Hawaii beginning in 1939. His career started at Fort Slocum, New York and, via Panama and San Francisco, arrived in Hawaii and spent most of his career at Wheeler Field, Hawaii. Hunter began photographically documenting his military career around November of 1939 and this Hawaii documentation extended through at least 1942. Corporal Hunter was a mechanic with 19th Pursuit Squadron, from December 13, 1939 to May 15, 1942, when that group became the 19th Fighter Squadron. The 19th saw action during Pearl Harbor as this airbase was attacked before Pearl Harbor to prevent planes from ever becoming airborne. This album begins with an 8" x 10" photo of eleven members of the 19th Pursuit Squadron, candidly relaxing with liquid refreshment, with a caption featuring the groups, names, ids, and where they were stationed. Following that are images from a ship traveling to Panama and San Francisco and eventually ending in Hawaii. Most of the shots are one-off snapshots of various buildings, and activities while Sergeant Hunter was in residence at Wheeler Army Airfield, a nearly 1400 acre compound adjacent to Schofield Barracks. Men are seen shooting large-caliber machine guns, playing baseball, spending time with "Pete" the canine tent mascot, and graduating from Mechanics school. Hunter also manages to photographically catalogues in depth a certain slice of Hawaiian history, and provides an extraordinarily detailed glimpse into the daily lives of American soldiers leading up to and including the primary act of Japanese aggression which resulted in the United States declaring war on Japan. Hawaiians are seen hula dancing, having a luau with the soldiers, and on the beach. One photo features Shirley Temple on a visit to the base during the war. Photographs after the bombing of Pearl Harbor show plane and building wreckage, and a number of snapshots of the bodies in a field. There's one particularly harrowing snapshot of a shirtless apparent Japanese prisoner of war, surrounded by three soldiers, two of whom have their weapons trained upon him. Additionally Hunter includes images of tanks; burnt-out aircraft; children behind barbed wire; destroyed buildings; and one fascinating folded photograph of four Japanese military men, no doubt taken from a Japanese soldier's private effects. A number of photos are of Captain (Roger M.) Ramey, who, several years after completion of his command of the 19th Pursuit-then-Fighting Squadron, after the War, was at the heart of the 1947 purported alien spacecraft crash near Roswell, New Mexico. Planes flown by the group include the P-26, P-36, P-40, P-47, and P-38. Finally affixed to the last pages are three 1941-1942 promotions, from Corporal to Staff Sergeant to Technical Sergeant, followed by a Form Commendation, dated June-July-August 1944 to "All Personnel, 318th Fighter Group, A.A.F, from Lt. Geo. Holland Smith and Vice Admiral. Kelly Turner." A vast and extensive collection of photographs detailing an airmen's time stationed in Hawaii during World War II.