Between the Covers

Hardcover. Folio. Measuring 12" x 14". String-tied brown leatherette album with stamped decorations on the from board. Contains 88 black and white gelatin silver photographs measuring between 2" x 2½" and 3½" x 4½" with captions. Detached front board else very good with edgewear with near fine photographs.

A photo album compiled by a soldier with the tank division during World War II. It begins with his basic training at the University of Oregon which include group photos of cadets posed at attention on the grounds of the college as well as interior shots from classrooms. Also included in the early pages are photographs of his sweetheart, Maribeth Rodway, and her visit to the base. After training they were sent to France for a short time before departing for Belgium and Luxembourg. From this point in the album the solider uses the captions of photos as short diary entries and explains the story behind the photographs on each page. Under one photo of a man driving an army vehicle it reads, “Big Boy Bellows, lost 3 tanks our 2nd day in combat. Took over C Company when Capt. Minnich lost.” Another photo reads, “2nd Platoon at Priests where artillery had blasted holes in walls and knocked out windows. Washed combat suits in gasoline in pump room. Rob saw V-2 while on guard – nite after 1st nite.” A page titled “into the Deutches Reich” shows the men in tanks surrounded by debris and reads, “stayed in pillboxes several nights – metal racks with canvas and bunks. Had own lights and air filters and some had own fresh water. Usually had trenches out back and interlocking fields of fire. If fully manned [and] armed would have really been tough.”

Another page is titled “1st Drive to Rhine” and features a photo of German officers being lead down a street and reads: “March 1945 surrender of German officers. Our tank missed Mayen…Koenigsberg caught up with us. We salvaged B or C Company tanks and stayed overnight in town with Krauts in schoolhouse nearby. We guarded tanks until Bobrowski’s orange gin took effect. Horse drawn artillery train with cognac, chocolate, and sardines.” The soldiers were fighting during the end of the war and the feel from the photographs and captions is that there was an air of anxiety and chaos mixed with jubilation, with one passage reading “champagne issued and consumed. Many drunks.” One captions reads, “Whitey and Hobling got lit and chased Lieutenant Thomas with bullets. Whitey told Starke off. Spice tried to calm him down but too wild.” The men are seen in tanks, going through abandoned houses, and sifting through debris. There are also a few photographs show the men posing with captured Nazi flags and by planes on an air field. Another photo shows a man with a top hat and a rifle posed next to a tank named the “avenger.”

A modest but interesting collection of World War II photography interspersed with diary entries featuring an American tank division and the surrender of German officers. Albums kept by tankers seem reasonably uncommon.

Item #408995