This post was originally published as Memory Monday, Week 81, in August 2018. This week I’m wrapping up my series of Korean War photos; I know a lot of you have been enjoying it, and I very much appreciate all your likes and shares. I think my final group of photos really encapsulates what my dad’s experience at Johnson Air Base was like. As before, I’ve put double quotes around any explanatory notes written on the back of the photos.
This post was originally published as Memory Monday, Week 77, in July 2018. I’ve found plenty of photos of P-51 Mustangs in my dad’s collection; some of them, like The Trio, appear over and over. I’m sure there are great stories behind every one of these ships, and someone familiar with the marks and insignias might be able to read some of them. Note the World War 2 “kill” decals and the Cobra in the Clouds insignia on one of the planes below.
This post was original published as Memory Monday, Week 76, on July 23, 2018. Typing “39th Fighter Squadron” into Google gets me a lot of information about the squadron’s history in World War 2 and Korea, mostly focused on the pilots who flew missions over hostile territory. But I don’t find too much about the hard-working ground crews who maintained the planes so they would return safely to base after the day’s job was done. My dad’s photo collection focuses mainly on his fellow flight mechanics, and of course the planes they constantly took apart and put back together.
This post was original published as Memory Monday, Week 75, on July 16, 2018. This week, I’m starting in on the photos of my dad’s fellow servicemen — although unfortunately he didn’t record their names anywhere. And some of the prints are really tiny, like 2 x 2.75 inches. The majority though are 3.25 x 2.75 inches or 4.25 x 3 inches in size. Makes me remember how far print photography has come even during my lifetime! It’s great seeing images of the servicemen interacting with very happy local kids, especially considering that a mere 5 years earlier, our countries were at war with each other. Next week, I’ll have more posed photos like the ones below; again, I can’t identify these guys, but I’m sure they were excellent young servicemen!
This week, I have the last of my slides from the 1950s — family photos featuring relatives from my mom’s side of the family. The photo above shows my Uncle Howard (my mom’s big brother) and his wife, Betty, along with their eldest daughter Joyce. Betty passed away in 2006.
Some of my very favorite old family slides are the ones dating from the 1950s and 1960s; even if I don’t have very much information about where they were shot, it’s great to see vintage cars and places that may have completely changed over the decades since the photos were taken. And of course it’s wonderful to see my parents […]
I’ve been on loads of fishing trips since I met the Big Guy 30-plus years ago, but I never imagined my mom and dad going salmon fishing until I came across these slides from 1950. My mom had relatives, the Ramsdells, living in Port Townsend, and they had what looks to me like a wonderful outing on Al Ramsdell’s boat.
Going through my family’s old slides can be a real adventure — I never know what I might find or if I’ll be able to sort out where each image belongs in relation to the other photos. Most of this week’s slides surfaced only recently, so I’m again discovering story fragments that I hope to piece together. I’m always delighted […]
I was going to start off this week with pictures from the early 1980s but decided instead to go further back in time — to the 1950s! I’m not sure how this particular group of images relate to each other, but they were in a bunch and are from about the same time frame. I’ve never visited Shasta Dam, but […]