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AEF Siberia photos 27th Inf US Navy Vladivostok 1918


Bob Hudson
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Found these in a box of family photos at an estate sale yesterday (actually my dad saw them first and said, "Interested in these?")

 

Nine of these are real photos printed on post card stock - the rest are printed on regular photo paper. What is great are the captions ID'ing such things as the Army transport Sherman in Vladivostok harbor, the prisoners, the captured weapons, the 1918 Armistice celebration parade, the 27th Infantry Division colors, etc.

 

The photos include shots of not only the 27th Div, but also US sailors marching in the parade, Turkish prisoners working (with what looks like a 1903 Springfield with bayonet projecting into the top left corner of the photo, and much much more.

 

 

You can scroll down to see the photos, or view a slideshow I posted to You Tube (you can enlarge that to full screen)

 

 

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Unbelieveable!

 

My wife - as with 99.999% of Americans - never knew that the US had sent thousands of troops to intervene in the Russian Revolution, so when I showed her the slideshow last night, she was shocked to see US sailors marching in Russia in 1918. If you think some of the politics of current intervention are convoluted, the Siberia expedition makes them seem straight forward.

 

Among the many oddities of this expedition (which include Japan and England as allies scheming against the US commanding general) is that 1,200 Czechs left the Russian Pacific coast to go home through Mexico, San Diego and Washington D.C. - talk about the long way home (a couple years ago I found photos of the Czechs parading at what is now Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, the former home of Top Gun).

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Those are some of the best photos I have ever seen. Stunning find!

 

And yeah, that's an '03.

 

These are original prints, but there apparently were multiple copies made as i found a couple of them elsewhere online, but none of those had these hand-written captions. I suspect that an enterprising photographer with access to the official AEF darkroom gear made multiple prints to sell. We saw that in WWII, especially with B-29 nose art photos. Even with multiple sets, I doubt many have survived since 1918-1920.

 

When my dad pulled these out of the box and showed them to me, I was quite stunned as I went through them and began to realize what they were.

 

There was nothing else in the house of a military nature, not anything else really from the early 20th century.

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Just for general information the US 27th Infantry Division fought on the Western Front and never was part of the Russia Expedition.

 

 

the 27th Infantry Regiment took part in the Siberia expedition.

 

 

Stunning pictures though, seems the 27th men and Sailors had US weapons

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Salvage Sailor

The trek of the Czech Legion across Russia after the armistice is an epic tale of defiance and perseverance.

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The trek of the Czech Legion across Russia after the armistice is an epic tale of defiance and perseverance.

i believe that is the Czech Legion guarding the armored train.

 

 

Here's a forum thread about the Czech legion showing them in San Diego. I have several more original photos of them in the US that I should add to this thread: http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/73604-us-military-czech-legion-cooperation/

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USCapturephotos

Great find. I think a friend of mine who is a big WW1 photo collector may also have period prints of a few of these...but many of these I havenever seen. Were there any real photo postcard portraits in the group? Congratulations!

Paul

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Great find. I think a friend of mine who is a big WW1 photo collector may also have period prints of a few of these...but many of these I havenever seen. Were there any real photo postcard portraits in the group? Congratulations!

Paul

 

There 9 "real photo" postcards including many of the Armistice parade photos.

 

For readers who don't know "real photo postcards" (RPPC) are actual photos printed on the back of postcards. There are postcards printed on printing presses, but the RPPC's are printed from photo negatives and are original photos, unlike the ones from printing presses which are low resolution copies made up of "halftone dots" instead of the continuous tones of photographs. Kodak started the RPPC process in 1907 and it became very popular in the following couple of decades.

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Oh thanks Bob. I will go back and look more closely!

Paul

 

It's hard to tell the difference, although generally the RPPC images seem to be a little higher in quality. probably because of the type of papr used on those.

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