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JACKPOT! Huge ID'd Archive to WWI Observer Owen G Williams


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TrenchfootJoe66

I cant believe Ive never looked at this thread before now. Simply amazing stuff. Reading the posts by some obviously well informed collectors and historians is inspiring. Ive never taken a serious interest in WW1 but this thread has really sparked my interest. First comes the books, then the collecting, good grief.

 

JW

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  • 3 months later...
I cant believe Ive never looked at this thread before now. Simply amazing stuff. Reading the posts by some obviously well informed collectors and historians is inspiring. Ive never taken a serious interest in WW1 but this thread has really sparked my interest. First comes the books, then the collecting, good grief.

 

JW

 

 

'JW'-

 

Thank you for taking an interest in this thread, and for your kind words. It is thoughts like yours that make the effort all worth while. I'm just sorry it's taken me a few months to reply...

 

To keep the interest going, I have a neat photo to share with all of those who've enjoyed this thread. This image was taken at Toul Airfield HQ on Thanksgiving Day 1918. Owen Williams is seated first from left in the middle row. E.S. Rhine (the guy in my avatar) is standing in the back row, fifth from left. He's in front of a wire running from the 3rd Photo Section Lorry.

 

Enjoy!

 

-Chuck

post-518-1289499738.jpg

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Croix de Guerre

Never get tired of looking through this thread Chuck! So when is the book gonna come out??? ;) You know you've got one here, just piece it together and call Schiffer! :thumbsup:

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  • 3 weeks later...
Never get tired of looking through this thread Chuck! So when is the book gonna come out??? ;) You know you've got one here, just piece it together and call Schiffer! :thumbsup:

 

 

Tom-

I definitely should! I'm still piecing together some notes & organizing the collection. I'll post a photo soon showing my progress on how I've archived this grouping.

 

Thanks again for your continued interest in this thread.

 

If anyone should find any photos, docs etc... on the 3rd Photo Section, excluding what's in the Gorrell report, please let me know. Thanks!

 

-Chuck

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  • 3 years later...

'Salvaged" is probably a bit strong of a word. :) Seeing as they crashed on Armistice Day, and the village was having one hell of a celebration, the drunken revellers swarmed over the plane and stripped it of every item they could haul off as souviners. A French engineer unit there finally found a couple sober soldiers and had them guard the remnants. When Lt Rowe, the Squadron Engineer (Maintenence) Officer showed up on the 19th, they hauled off the Liberty engine and "matchsticks." There may have been *some* exaggeration in Henry's telling of it though . . .

 

An old thread but what the heck.

 

This is sort of funny. My Grandfather, Lt. Rowe was able to bring home the part of the canvas with the owl and spy glass, and some other pieces of *one* of the crashed planes. I'd always wondered how he got away with the expensive bits like the clock and the altimeter (currently in my possession) without being charged with theft of government property... it's possible that he took advantage of a ancient and useful technique: When in doubt... blame the french!

 

in addition to the alt and clock and canvas, my sister and I have a jewelry box made out of a cross section of the propeller, a small chess set carved out of some other piece of the prop, along with a complete propeller hub who's bolt holes are filed with empty .303 cases. One wonders how he got that on a crowded troop ship.

 

The not so funny part is that, apparently Lt. Rowe made extra cash in France by developing the personal camera film of infantrymen and others he met, and he kept the negatives or made copies of some of them for himself-battle field pics of bodies hanging in trees and the like, according to my dad. It is said that after my grandfather died in the early 50's, my grandmother tossed or gave away this collection. All we know for sure is that only 4 or 5 pictures survive from his time in the 278th. I would post them but they currently reside with my cousin on the west coast, and basically are all pics of Lt. Rowe posing in uniform and not of planes or other members of the squadron.

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. . . This is sort of funny. My Grandfather, Lt. Rowe was able to bring home the part of the canvas with the owl and spy glass, and some other pieces of *one* of the crashed planes. I'd always wondered how he got away with the expensive bits like the clock and the altimeter (currently in my possession) without being charged with theft of government property... it's possible that he took advantage of a ancient and useful technique: When in doubt... blame the french!

 

No worry about the charges of theft of government equipment. The postsctipt on the US DH4s in Europe is rather sad. Once the war was over, all shipping priority was to get troops home as soon as possible, not backhauling equimpent. And, since newer models of the DH4 were already being produced, no one felt any need to waste money shipping obsolecent aircraft back stateside. So . . . machines execss to the needs of the US element of the Occupation Force were gathered together in piles and burned. At the time they called it the "Billion Dollar Bonfire". I assume they did the same for other aircraft models?

 

Over in The Aerodrome Forum there's a partial picture of the piles of aircraft before burning. I say it's a partial picture, because I have a much fuzzier copy that shows two more piles in addition to the one pictured. Apparently the one in The Aerodrome was cropped. You can find that cropped one here:

 

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/aircraft/58469-breguets-crashfile-challenge-745-a.html

 

So I'm pretty sure no bureaucrat cared much for any souviniers your Grandfather may have "retained for safekeeing and historical value"!

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  • 2 years later...

 

'JW'-

 

Thank you for taking an interest in this thread, and for your kind words. It is thoughts like yours that make the effort all worth while. I'm just sorry it's taken me a few months to reply...

 

To keep the interest going, I have a neat photo to share with all of those who've enjoyed this thread. This image was taken at Toul Airfield HQ on Thanksgiving Day 1918. Owen Williams is seated first from left in the middle row. E.S. Rhine (the guy in my avatar) is standing in the back row, fifth from left. He's in front of a wire running from the 3rd Photo Section Lorry.

 

Enjoy!

 

-Chuck

 

I know it's been years...

 

But just to share the progress I've made with the grouping, the diary has been fully transcribed & annotated. MOST of the photos have been cataloged, cross-referenced with diary, and put in several archival binders.

To top it all off, technology has come a long way in that the newer (albeit higher end) scanners can now scan any old glass or celluloid negative w/o the need for a specialized frame to hold them in place. Therefore, I've finally been able to scan the 100's of negatives in the grouping. What a task!!!

Here's just one small example of what I've been up to over the years. That last group photo I posted (the one I'm quoting here), is now mostly identified. There are a few faces that I simply can't reference from the rest of the group. Not bad, eh?

 

Last, but not least, a copy of Williams' notebooks & tests (yes, he saved those too!) were scanned and copies sent to the archivist at Cornell University. They were tickled since they had little to no information on the 1st aerial photography class held at their school.

 

Here's the legend. By all means, PLEASE do not hesitate to contact me directly if you have information on any of the names & faces you see below:

 

1) C. Walton Reeves

2) Owen G. Williams

3) George W. Lundberg

4) Earl S. Rhine

5) Lee A. Cole

6) H. Brodie

7) Albert A. Fagerberg

9) Durbin H. Steiner

10) Frank G. Lowery

11) Grover C. Cowley

12) Glenn S. Herrick

13) Walter Sharp

14) Eugene Breyer

15) Joseph Murtha

 

 

-Chuck

post-518-0-97499000-1476808704_thumb.jpg

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Great work on a really fascinating group! I love when these projects persist and progress over years! Thanks for the up date! If we , the collector/historians don't save this stuff and their stories, who will?

David

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Here's another example of how I've progressed with the grouping.

 

Thanks to a colleague in France, he gave me special maps to interpret those coordinates (seen here at top left in the period image). They are called "Lambert coordinates" and the maps given to me help pinpoint exactly where the image was taken. Below is just one example.

 

Cataloging this aspect of the collection (there are 100's of pics with these Lambert coordinates) is my next big project...

 

-Chuck

 

Anyone with pictures showing these coordinates, please feel free to PM me...and I'll see if I can pinpoint it for you

post-518-0-51126800-1476990581_thumb.jpg

post-518-0-67250800-1476990604.jpg

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Austin_Militaria

Here's another example of how I've progressed with the grouping.

 

Thanks to a colleague in France, he gave me special maps to interpret those coordinates (seen here at top left in the period image). They are called "Lambert coordinates" and the maps given to me help pinpoint exactly where the image was taken. Below is just one example.

 

Cataloging this aspect of the collection (there are 100's of pics with these Lambert coordinates) is my next big project...

 

-Chuck

 

Anyone with pictures showing these coordinates, please feel free to PM me...and I'll see if I can pinpoint it for you

With that kind of cement structure in the picture, I wonder if it is still there? I guess someone can easily find out.

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That is a great discovery-that the Lambert coordinates can be used this way! I'm more on fire about collecting WWI stuff than ever before! This is another example of the fact that our sharing leads to more connections and revelations than we would ever imagine! Thanks again for your investment of time and efforts!

 

David

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