[World War II]. [Photography]

[Large Photographic Archive of Warren I. Johnson Documenting His Army Training and Service During World War II]

[Various places, including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Europe: 1942-1946]. 377 original photographs in varying small formats, contained in four oblong folio albums, plus three large, rolled panoramas and additional ephemera. Boards and leaves of three albums loose, but intact, aside from front board of one album lacking spine piece. Photos affixed directly to album leaves, with extensive manuscript annotations, with additional annotations on blank versos of some images. A small handful of photos evidently missing, but otherwise only occasional minor wear. Very good. Item #2528

A sizable photograph archive consisting over 375 original images that document the World War II military service of Warren I. Johnson from his induction to his voyage home from Europe. Johnson was an elementary school teacher in Columbia, Pennsylvania, when he enlisted on May 20, 1942, trained across the United States primarily in the South and West, and served across Europe in the latter states and aftermath of the war, before returning home in February 1946.

The first album contains just under 150 images, and covers the period from May 1942 to May 1943. A brief first series of images shows Johnson at several locales in Miami, Florida, where he received basic training, before the scene shifts to Scott Field in Illinois, east of St. Louis, where he entered radio school. His training as a radioman continued in Orlando, before he boarded a train west to take up his first stateside assignments, at several airfields across California and then with the 356th Fighter Group in Tonopah, Nevada, and Santa Rosa.

Johnson was then transferred back to the South, and the second album present, which documents November 1943 to May 1944, holds sixty-seven photographs that depict his life while assigned to the 247th Anti-Aircraft Artillery at Camp Davis, North Carolina, as well as a training spell at the School for Special Services on the campus of Washington & Lee University during Spring 1944. In September 1944, Johnson entered the infantry training school at Fort Benning, Georgia, which is extensively shown in the third album. The ninety-seven images contained there also show part of his service with the Seventh Army in Europe across France and Germany during the first half of 1945. Of particular interest near the end of this album is a group of seven photographs from Johnson's assignment to guard duty at a prison camp in Schwarzenborn, Germany, immediately following the end of the war in Europe.

The final album, which contains sixty-four original images, depict the remainder of Johnson's service in Europe, mostly engaged in the occupation of Heidelberg, his transit through Germany to Bremen, and his voyage home aboard the USS Noah Webster. Also present with this collection are seventeen issues of the mimeographed shipboard newspaper from Johnson's journey (Noah's News -- "Noah News is Good News"), and three panoramas, including one bird's-eye view of Camp Davis and two group portraits of his officer training classes there, as well as a commemorative, spent anti-aircraft shell.

Overall, the albums contain an interesting mix of portraiture, scenery, and action shots from the various locales to which Johnson was sent by the military, and are particularly notable as a representative and extensive encapsulation of his entire lengthy service time in the South, the West, and in Europe during World War II.

Price: $1,500.00