Sep 29, 2022 - Sale 2615

Sale 2615 - Lot 317

Price Realized: $ 1,820
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(WORLD WAR TWO.) Navy man's scrapbook showing the gruesome aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack. 157 photographs and three matchbook covers inserted with corner mounts to 36 scrapbook leaves, with an "Ancient Order of the Deep" certificate and a page of autographs bound in. Oblong 4to, 8 x 11 inches, decorative limp calf covers with silk engraving of ship set in, minor wear; signature and ship name on front cover. Hawaii, 1938-circa 1941

Additional Details

Most of this album depicts the idyllic life of a peacetime sailor stationed in Hawaii, enjoying the beach, the palm trees, and the local tourist sights. In the rear are 7 pages of uncaptioned photos depicting the carnage of Pearl Harbor. Souvenir shots of the U.S.S. Houston, Chicago, Argonne, and Maryland are juxtaposed with 19 snapshots of explosions and corpses, each 2 3/4 x 4 inches. 3 are distant views of buildings and ships with smoke rising. One simply shows the spatter of blood on a ship's deck. Another shows a dismembered hand. 14 other snapshots show corpses of soldiers. We have found no evidence that any of them were published.

The album is signed on the cover "Lindley, E.A. E.M. 3/6 1938 U.S.S. Argonne." The compiler was apparently Edward Arthur Lindley (1916-1980) of Connecticut, who had enlisted in the Navy by 1935.