OSS CBI Photobook 15 - Southwest China, 1945- Reconnaissance, Part 1

These scenes are still in or near the KMT HQ we have featured in recent posts.  We need to figure out  precisely where this is.

The style of photomontage used here, with no margins and with prints cut at various angles, is reminiscent of what we have seen in the Kensington High yearbook design and the St. Luke's youth group newsletter.  Apparently it was popular in the 1940s.  Who did all this cutting and pasting for this photobook?  Dad?  His father, our JPZ?  Mom?  Mom having done it would explain all the photos of Dad!

Detailed information about the terrain was vital to planning airstrips and a possible future land invasion, the latter a dreadful prospect.  The photo team does not appear to have wide-angle lenses.  They take a series, note the exposure numbers, and cut and paste prints together to produce a wide view of terrain.

Posed shots like the one below are hints that they have a lot of time on their hands. No doubt they also need to adapt their techniques to local conditions of light and dust, set up their darkroom facilities, and decide on the best developing and printing techniques.

They are also making contact with local Chinese, setting up training sessions, setting up reconnaissance missions and protocols for reporting, and recording terrain farther and farther out from base.

Who is this?  Who is this?

"Wartime Series" Post of May 12, 2012 - in re Grandfather Clock

Putting up the grandfather clock photos recalled the May 2012 post "Wartime Series."

I ran across those prints again, and wanted to show them to you before I file them away.  Matter of fact, they are now in a Ziploc baggie along with a little piece of paper that says "Wartime Series."  Hey, I'm not going to live forever - who does? - so, heirs and descendants, understand and appreciate these artifacts, and take care of them.

In the meantime I shall bend every effort to solve the mysteries involved, as and when possible.

Deal?  Good.

JPZ - EJZ - USA

Grandfather Clock, Then and Now

John Peter Zdrojewski, our JPZ, came to America on the boat in 1903 with his parents, Ludwig and Victoria Zdrojewski.  As a young man in Buffalo, he worked for a time in a carpentry shop.  We have a photo of the crew in the shop.  JPZ is second from right, identified for us by his son John, our JFZ.

John Peter built a grandfather clock, a "case clock," at home.  Family legend has him just finishing it up on the kitchen table when his firstborn, Eugene, our EJZ, was born in the next room.  That was October 7, 1923.

So it was always in the house, on St. Louis Street and then on May Street, in Buffalo.  Below we see Eugene home from Orchard Lake - high school? or college? - at Christmastime.  The grandfather clock is in the background, obscured by that lamp.

In 1940, JPZ's younger brother Casimir Zdrojewski and his wife Cecelia brought their firstborn, Paul, to visit.  Here is the photo of the young family seated by the grandfather clock.

During World War II, while Eugene was away 1943-1945, JPZ made a photo series about being a parent on the home front.  We have seen the photo below, here and also here.  This is the best photo we have found so far of that clock.

The grandfather clock moved to the Marilla house some time after its completion in 1957.  We have yet to find a photo of that clock in its place in the Marilla house!  That is a shock.  With luck we will find some.  It was important; it was a fixture; so where are the pictures?

In the 1980s Gene and Clara took the clock to somebody for refinishing.  We have a couple of Polaroids from their visit to the clock while it was in rehab.  Tye found them inside the case.

When the Marilla house was closed in 2008, the clock went to its new home with Tye and Kim Zdrojewski.  Thanks, Tye, for the photos.

The old, dark varnish had historic-sentimental value, but the new finish shows off the wood so much better.  Looks like curly maple, doesn't it?  

A treasure beyond price.

Tom Thomson

Oh, I am so proud of the right sidebar at Gene & Clara's.  Just look at all that great stuff.  "Happening Recently Enough in Argyle, New York" is set just above the clickable list of labels.  Right now we feature a painting by Tom Thomson. 

Algonquin country, now Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park, was his stamping ground.  His best paintings date from 1914-1917.

I was there, in Algonquin, on a canoe trip, in July 1969.  In a place that looked a lot like that (except for the snow) I looked up at the moon, where the crew of Apollo 11 were making the first landing.

Bit of a loner Thomson was, perhaps a bit of a misfit, and his death while out in a canoe on his favorite waters remains a mystery.

OSS CBI Photobook 14 - Chinese Pony, Southwest China, 1945

OSS CBI Photobook 13 - Southwest China, Planting Time, 1945

OSS CBI Photobook 12, Part 2 - Koumintang 1945, continued

Kachin? Jingpo? Singpho?

I found this photo of Singpho ladies in full regalia,
having a side view of their hats,
of which we will see more as we go along.
They are not the same as the hat in the photo
above this one, which has particular features
in the back.  So the identity of these people
in the Photobook remains a puzzle:
somebody help me out here!

OSS CBI Photobook 12, Part 1 - Koumintang 1945

Boys drawn to a vehicle like a magnet -
it seems to be a universal thing.

Gene's China-Burma-India service patch.

It's early summer
somewhere in southwest China.
Katy, our scholarly consultant, says
"It looks southern from the trees of course."
We'll see trees.

Click to enlarge the details of people carrying in the grain harvest.
Behind them, war and politics loom.
That is Chiang Kai-Shek, naturally, featured on the center mural.Then on either side are some exhortations.

As Katy kindly explains:

  "The writing is a slogan about supporting the buildup of the army. The same technique of using the sides of buildings as billboards for public service announcements has continued into the present. Always a preference for a matching pair of 4 or 5 characters -- a couplet if you will, because that was so favored for inscriptions of all kinds.  e.g. on the two sides of a doorway at holidays, or on the two sides of a wall behind the desk of a scholarly mandarin."

Soldier Poetry

Chicago, mid-1944?

Washington, D.C.,  late 1944?

Port of embarkation, early 1945?

Troopship, 1945?