Bob Hudson Posted May 25, 2010 Share #1 Posted May 25, 2010 Got a call yesterday from a guy who had a box of photos he'd rescued from the trash a few years back. Well, it was worth the drive to the next county, as it turned out be about 300 8x10 inch photographs, all apparently from original negatives. Some are period prints, others appear to have been made direct from the original negatives. Most of them are of Marines in action in the Vietnam War in 1966, but there are some WWI and WWII photos and one image from Korea. Most of them have stamps or labels on the back. I have scanned these in black and white, so the labels, which are often in blue ink, come out and black and white. There was one photo that was a real treat. I've always remembered a headline from the Navy Times in the 1960's about a new device that could detect the VC by body odor. The headline was: BO KO'S VC PDQ Well, one of the photos I got this morning was of the BO detector! Here's the caption on the back: In order to better show details in this and many other of the photos, I show enlarged sections of photos instead of the whole image, but here's an example of how this one looks without being cropped: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 25, 2010 Author Share #2 Posted May 25, 2010 Here's some pre-WWI images, including some Marine vehicles and classroom at Quantico in 1918 and this original 1931 print of an aircraft getting ready to fly to Haiti: This one is from WWI and shows Marines inflating a balloon: And here's some 1918 Marines in class learning about the Lewis gun - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 25, 2010 Author Share #3 Posted May 25, 2010 Some more 1918 photos (and again these are sections of the larger photos): Jumping ahead to 1942 and one of a few such prints of Guadalcanal air ops in 1942: This is the only Korean War photo from the lot: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BEAST Posted May 25, 2010 Share #4 Posted May 25, 2010 Got a call yesterday from a guy who had a box of photos he'd rescued from the trash a few years back. Well, it was worth the drive to the next county, as it turned out be about 300 8x10 inch photographs, all apparently from original negatives. Some are period prints, others appear to have been made direct from the original negatives. Most of them are of Marines in action in the Vietnam War in 1966, but there are some WWI and WWII photos and one image from Korea. Most of them have stamps or labels on the back. I have scanned these in black and white, so the labels, which are often in blue ink, come out and black and white. There was one photo that was a real treat. I've always remembered a headline from the Navy Times in the 1960's about a new device that could detect the VC by body odor. The headline was: BO KO'S VC PDQ Well, one of the photos I got this morning was of the BO detector! Here's the caption on the back: In order to better show details in this and many other of the photos, I show enlarged sections of photos instead of the whole image, but here's an example of how this one looks without being cropped: Nice photos! Please post more! CPT Flanigan earned a Silver Star in 1964 while serving as an advisor to a Vietnamese Ranger BN. http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/go6431.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 25, 2010 Author Share #5 Posted May 25, 2010 As I said, most of these photos are from Vietnam, showing Marines in the field. But, there a lot showing various Marine General in Vietnam, including several of Commandant Wallace M. Green. Notice his HBT's and the writing on the young Marines helmet covers: I am going to do a thread showing closeups of the helmet graffiti in many of these photos. Here's one of the period photos - while all of these are from period negatives, there are a few that are also clearly period prints: Being 8x10 photos, the ones of the Marines in the field are a great source of details. On this one you can even see the fly on his shoulder: And here's the full image: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 25, 2010 Author Share #6 Posted May 25, 2010 I like this one - notice the Army officer. And seeing the full image helps put this into perspective: that's a lot of water to cross with that many people in a small rubber boat. Luckily they did not get stopped by the Cost Guard and cited for lack of PFD's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 25, 2010 Author Share #7 Posted May 25, 2010 I need to scan some more. Since these are 8x10 photos, I am scanning them at 600DPI in order to show some details. That makes for 15Mb files for each photo, but of course by the time they are cropped and reduced to post here, each photo is 30-50Kb, or 0.002 percent of their original file size. Speaking of cropping, I have discovered that some of the photos have crop marks on them: these are lines in the white space around the image and are used by editors to show which parts of a photo should be used in a newspaper or magazine. This leads me to believe that these photos were tossed out by a publication, , perhaps something at nearby Camp Pendleton. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
316th FS 324th FG Posted May 25, 2010 Share #8 Posted May 25, 2010 These are very very nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 25, 2010 Author Share #9 Posted May 25, 2010 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1944 Posted May 25, 2010 Share #10 Posted May 25, 2010 Very nice pictures indeed well done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Meatcan Posted May 25, 2010 Share #11 Posted May 25, 2010 good job on rescuing these photos FS! and thanks for the effort of scanning and posting. There are some excellent reference shots there not to mention just plain old cool photos! Love the enlargement of the fly :thumbsup: Terry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwb123 Posted May 25, 2010 Share #12 Posted May 25, 2010 A lot of the photos that show up on the market are UPI/ AP wirephotos, with an occaisionaly DoD photo of the same nature. Most of these are prints off of wirephoto machines which were early versions of the FAX machine. While the originals would be sharp and clear, the wirephotos vary in quality depending on the machine that received them. I have some which are close to photo quality while others are as muddy as can be. These are obviously original prints. These are far superior for scanning and drawing off details and enlargements. You can see with these the quality of the camera equipment that was being used, as well as the development process and quality of paper. Unless you've adjusted these in your scans, I don't see any signs of yellowing. This is so much better than many of the photos you see published in books. I've seen that photo of the Wildcat on Guadacanal being saved before, but never so clear. Nice find! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brig Posted May 25, 2010 Share #13 Posted May 25, 2010 I love these Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 26, 2010 Author Share #14 Posted May 26, 2010 Okay here's some more grunts at work: most of the above photos are no more than 620 pixels wide, but these are up to 1,000 pixels wide so you may need to click them to see the larger sizes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 26, 2010 Author Share #15 Posted May 26, 2010 As mentioned above, photos like this, even when seen on a computer screen, give us a view of history unlike what we're used to which is the very low resolution book, newspaper and magazine photos and even the old films. I have to say that in going through this almost five-inch high stack of photos I was stunned by what I was seeing. Check out that one pack load: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 26, 2010 Author Share #16 Posted May 26, 2010 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 26, 2010 Author Share #17 Posted May 26, 2010 Marines and machines..... I believe these birds were part of squadron HMM-362 - The rations were just flown in by chopper, according to the caption on the back: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwb123 Posted May 26, 2010 Share #18 Posted May 26, 2010 The Vietnam photos are excellent, but I am really struck by how clear that photo of the class on the Lewis gun is. It is full of detail, right down to the stripes on the arm of the instructor. The 1930's aviation photos are very sharp as well. As you know, a lot gets lost in the publishing process. Computers allow us a lot clearer image. It's also an advantage when publishing on CD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 26, 2010 Author Share #19 Posted May 26, 2010 Here's some with captions naming individuals. Notice the general (and the chinstrap): Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 26, 2010 Author Share #20 Posted May 26, 2010 If you enjoy seeing old photos in such detail, don't forget to check out the Life Magazine digital archive in which they have scanned millions of original negatives and posted them at Google Images. To learn more about that go to http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/ind...showtopic=30740 To illustrate how a digital image from an original negative is different than a scan from something printed in a book or magazine, I scanned a photo from a book and enlarged it 300% and then did a screen capture of one of the LIFE/Google archive photos and enlarged that 300% - the halftone dots used published photos makes it a whole different ballgame, because enlarging it just shows you larger dots, not more detail. The photos have "grain," but it rather fine and still allows us to see more detail from extreme enlargements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brig Posted May 26, 2010 Share #21 Posted May 26, 2010 my brother in law was just recently in Vietnam and passed through Hue City...will have to post his photos when he sends them for the then/now comparrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunbarrel Posted May 26, 2010 Share #22 Posted May 26, 2010 Outstanding photos, Bob! Thanks for sharing them with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
usmcski Posted May 26, 2010 Share #23 Posted May 26, 2010 Fantastic pics, Bob, VERY interesting! Also, plenty of shots of 1st and 2nd pattern HBT helmet covers in use, I especially like the shot of the BGen with the pin-on EGA on his helmet! Thanks again... Semper, Ski Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Boghots Posted May 26, 2010 Share #24 Posted May 26, 2010 Great find, Bob ! - Appreciate the time and effort you've put into scanning and posting. . . . think I'll stay tuned. Best regards, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shrapneldude Posted May 26, 2010 Share #25 Posted May 26, 2010 WOW! Nice photos! Any more of USMC Advisors in Vietnam? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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