PBA Galleries

Most photographs approx. 6.5x8.5 cm (2½x3¼") or reverse, loose in corner mounts on black leaves; many captioned in white ink on the leaves. 27x37 cm (10½x14½"), period full pictorially embossed leather with clasp.

Exceptional album of original candid photographs capturing life in the U.S. Navy in the final years before the Second World War, when American ships regularly called on ports in China, the Philippines, French Indochina, and even Japan. The album features many pictures of his ships, which included the Pope and the Sacramento; crew members; family in San Diego; Manila; Guam; "Scenes in Woosung after the Japs had fired on it in '37'"; Hong Kong; Shanghai; Tsingtao; shipboard activities such as painting decks; the ship Pope in drydock in Shanghai; various naval and military bases in the Philippines; swimming in the China Sea; Tourane in French Indochina; Peiping China, Haiphong, The album is notable for the many photographs of daily activities and events in naval life, the crew members, the street scenes of local ports, and other such views often overshadowed by commercial photographs in similar albums. Laid in are three course certificates for Wolf, beginning as a Seaman Second Class in April 1937, rising to Torpedoman Second Class by December 1939.