Movie Stars from WWII: Part 2

Her fur coat and outfit helped point me in the right dircetion

This is a follow up to an earlier post, which I’ll be referring to with the assumption that you’ve read it. If you haven’t, go here to get caught up. Then come on back for the surprising conclusion!

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    After David (of The Errol Flynn Blog) confirmed that it was indeed Flynn, Martha O’Driscoll and Olivia De Havilland in the photos I sent to him, it was time to figure out where the pictures had been taken. In addition to those names, I also took clues from the land in the pictures. It was rocky, barren and coastal. And by looking at the heavy, fur coat Ms. De Havilland is wearing in her photo, it’s clear that it was also a cold place.

These four look dressed for cold weather as well

    My guess was somewhere in Alaska since it fit the physical description and I knew there were bases there during the war. So I searched for “Errol Flynn Martha O’Driscoll Alaska” and was happy to discover that the two had visited Dutch Harbor, Alaska on December 4^th, 1943. 

Movie Stars from WWII

  At Gas Lamp I found a Ziploc bag full of photos with a note saying they were a soldier’s entire private photo collection from World War Two. Needless to say, I was excited about the potential story the photos contained. This guy could have literally served anywhere in the world, faced any number of dangers, fought in one of the many famous encounters from the war. That almost limitless possibility is exactly why I’m drawn to old photographs. Each one is its own historical rabbit hole. They dictate the terms of the adventure, all I have to do is find and learn about them. It’s basically brain TV and I really wanted to watch this show…

Back in the Saddle

                                   

  I've been inactive on this blog for far too long but that's all about to change! Despite my silence, I've been busy digging up many, MANY interesting stories to share. So over the next few weeks, you can look forward to posts about...

-More on the story of the USS SC-1277

-An encounter with The Errol Flynn blog

-J.M. Jarvis of the Tennessee Union Volunteer Cavalry

-Storm damage from the early-1900s

-A paddleboat on the Ohio River

-Looking for the owner of a WWII uniform

-Maybe, possibly a death photo?

-Quaker schoolboys

-Ferdinand the Bull from Daytona Beach

  They're all in the works and will begin appearing here in the next few days. Come on back and learn something with me!

IDing a WWII Ship

     Longtime readers of this brand new blog will recall that I once promised a post about a World War II U.S. Navy submarine chaser. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) I was sidetracked by my encounter with Bill, then by an old photo album I received for Christmas. But today I hope to begin to right that long forgotten wrong.

     I'm still researching the history of the ship in this image (which I bought for $1 at a store called Cool Stuff Weird Things). But in order to get to that point, I had to first figure out the class (type) of ship using only the clues available in the image. Clearly the number "1277" jumps out as a potential lead, so that's where I decided to start my search...