Hidden Treasure

 First a little background info to set the stage.  Little Juvat has successfully transferred to his new location and has entered self-quarantine in his apartment.  The good news is the grocery store is on the first floor of the apartment complex and delivers.  Evidently, they recognize the severity of the situation as they also deliver the essentials.  Beer, Wine and Whiskey.  So, the British Empire's influence is still there.

As most of the long time readers here know, their Dog, Tex, was with them in Kuwait.  Kuwait falls into the list of countries that has a history of Rabies.  If a dog transfers from those countries to HK, they must go into quarantine for 6 months. But if the dog transfers from a country not on that list, they go right in.  Therefore, DIL and Tex have been living in one of our guest houses for close to 6 months now.  But...the time to rejoin with Little Juvat is nearing.  So, she's been making the rounds saying hello/goodbye to family and friends throughout the state lately.  She just got back from one of those trips to visit family in Wichita Falls.  

When she got back, she came up for dinner.  (It's more fun when the three of us get together, so she does it regularly.)  While I'm cooking dinner, she's telling us about some railway journals her father had discovered a while back.  

Note the Dec 42 publication date

Her great-great uncle had been an engineer on the railroad prior to WWII.  I thought thumbing through those would be interesting, so when I got to one of those lulls in the cooking process, I wandered over and opened one up.  This was the page I opened it to.

Her great-great Aunt, had used the journals as photo/clipping albums while her husband was away in the South Pacific during the war.  That picture was kind of spooky as I was in the middle of reading Kevin Miller's "The Silver Waterfall", a novel about the Battle of Midway told from the point of view of the little guys, not the guys with stars. That afternoon, I had read the section of the novel that described  VMSB-241's attack from Midway on the Japanese fleet.  This was a picture of that squadron taken shortly before the battle.  If you read the picture's caption, it's obvious that it was taken from before the attack.

What startled me was that while I had known that the first attacks on the Japanese during the battle had been disastrous for the US, seeing this picture from a newspaper from that time period induced a "OMG, it REALLY happened." feeling. They were REAL people. Not just names and numbers. I pondered that through dinner and the next morning got up and went through the rest of the journals. Most were full as "Scrapbooks" not railroad journals, and it was interesting to see the depth and breadth of war subjects that the Wichita Falls Newspaper covered at the time.  The variety of subjects was undoubtedly helpful in understanding the magnitude of the war.  Although WWII in the Pacific has been an interest of mine since I was very young, I still learned a few things from this exercise.

 I liked this picture as I've visited several of the islands at the top, including two where not nice things happened, Wake and Camp O'Donnell in the PI. 

I've been here.  Eerie
Source

Tucked a couple of pages into the journal/album was this envelope which was filled with snapshots.  Apparently Great-Great-Uncle Berry was a photo buff, as well as a SeaBee.  Cool!

I shook out the pics and this one was on top.

On the right, a hometown boy that had done well and has a phenomenal Museum named for him in town.  Not sure who the two other guys in the picture were and the only annotation on all the pictures was:

Other pictures in the envelope:

According to this site, the 16th Naval Construction Battalion (from the return address on the envelope) was involved in operations on Tarawa albeit after serious combat operations had stopped.  So these could have been taken there.  I don't know what the guys were looking at in the sky, nor do I have any idea what the explosion was from.  But...It's a pretty darn big one.

I liked both these photos,  Cover, but no shirt, and a bit of quiet Sunday celebration, in the midst.

I thought this picture was unique, actually fairly accurate on the places invasions came from.  (Yes, Beans, Churchill's Balkan's plan was scrapped very early on.)  But it does make an interesting graphic.

The paper seems to have done a fairly good job in trying to explain the how's, why's, when's, and where's of the war to the civilian populace.  I think these next few do a pretty good job of graphic explanation.

Lotta land to cover.

Roughly the same size as the Southwest Pacific Theater

This one really put's WWII in perspective. I know for a fact that the bottom line there from Hawaii to Japan will take 10.9 hours (and 15 refuelings) flying in an F-4. It's a LONG way!

There were also clippings of locals involved in the festivities.

I got a chuckle out of this picture (which also has a "not for distribution" censor stamp on the back.

Not how I remember Waikiki

Shortly after this picture was taken, USS Wasp (CV-7) was transferred to the Pacific Fleet to replace losses from the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway.  Unfortunately, on September 15, 1942, she and Japanese Submarine I-19 got into a duel.  She lost and had to be scuttled.

I found this picture to be illuminating.  War affects everybody involved.

Look at the name of the game!  I guess it helps them cope.  

Finally, got to the bottom of the stack and found the SeaBee Battalion's yearbook, and found Great-Great-Uncle Henry's photo.

Official Name but he went by Henry

Survived the war and married rejoined his bride, DIL's Great-Grandmother's sister.  They had no children and that's how the stash came into DIL's hands.  Unfortunately, I have to return it to her.  There's still an awful lot of "clues" I'd like to investigate therein.

On a lighter note, I texted the family a "Dad Joke" I stole from Powerline Saturday.  It went like this.

Source

I got official groans from Mrs J, Little Juvat and DIL, and MBD and SIL.  For which I received this trophy.

Thank you, Thank you, you've been a great audience, be sure to tip the maître d'.  He traveled all last week and needs the gas money.