Yet another link

Bill Murray · #1 29-12-03, 23:11

Some of you may have run across this one but I have not seen it posted on this BB.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fsaquery./html

The site is roughly titled American Memory Library of Congress
B&W photos from FSA and OWI 1935-1945.

In short strokes it is a huge repository of photos of in the first instance something to do with farm reconstruction and rehabilitation (I haven't figured out what FSA is yet) and the Office of War Information.

It is fairly easy to negotiate, you only have to remember to select more than 100 images or that is all you will get on a given subject and it is best to select the thumbnail option which lets you flick through 40 pics at a time instead of just one.

There is not a heck of a lot of military pics but they are ones I have never seen in print when you find them. The only CMP I have found so far attributes them to part of US Lend Lease!!!

On the other hand, there are a lot of shots, not the best, of Studebakers and Diamond Ts in Persia as well as Jeeps etc.

The searches I have had the best luck with are as follows and I only hit this one last evening. Alcan...Lend Lease...Persia...Iran...Dodge...Truck.

If you are into vintage shots of civilian US and Canadian vehicles from the 20s to the 40s, there are hundreds of great shots of farm trucks, tractors, construction equipment, delivery trucks, well you name it and again, I have about every book ever printed on the subject and I have never seen these pics.

For Hanno, there are at least two shots of the India Pattern Armoured Car (Ford based I guess) that I had never seen and a couple of shots of them being assembled. This was in the Lend Lease search group.

There are several hundred more data bases linked into this site and as I have the time I will do more research. May be a dry hole but we crazies never give up, do we.

Happiest of New Years to all of my friends here on MLU

Bill Murray

Bill Murray · #2 30-12-03, 15:42

OK, I have fixed at least part of the link I posted yesterday. If you go to the first post "new Link" and hit the link it will give you an error message but tells you to click on the main page link and you will get the home page.
Then find the area where you can view all available archives and keep scrolling down to where you will find something like B&W photographs 1935-1945, bring that up and go back to what I said yesterday.
I have no idea why the link doesn't work (oops, I do need new glasses by the way. The original link I posted had two errors which I fixed and it still didn't work) Sorry for the bother but it is worth the effort in my opinion.
Bill

Bill Murray · #3 30-12-03, 23:40

Try: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html

Richard Farrant · #4 30-12-03, 23:52

You got it , Bill........I did have a quick look last night and searched "Lease Lend", then UK and found some good pictures.

Richard

Bill Murray · #5 31-12-03, 02:16

Thanks Richard for your support.

Further search areas will yield the following at the least.

Africa: Dodge ambulance/Autocar tractor x 2 or 3/12Cyl Lincoln of the SA Ambassador at the White House/some sort of tankette/a horse drawn/portee artillery piece/a very dejected looking Italian prisoner sitting in front of what I presume is a Fordson WOT.

Britain: What looks to me to be an IH M2 with .30 cal MG in the BWI/possibly a Humber Snipe flanked by some sort of military Ford Estate Car/

Russia: Numerous photos of the 6x4 Studebaker in various variants. Also lots of Jeeps as I mentioned earlier.

Tunisia: A few new CMP pics, several of De Gualle in what I belive is a Lancia 2 door touring convertible, an AEC Matador or whatever, an unknown Italian van taken over by the Brits, and various Fords and Bedfords.

Algeria: A Bedford OY as a canteen vehicle.

Egypt: A CMP 15 CWT GS, a 1941 Plymouth 4 Dr. (LHD I think), and a Thornycroft W2 GS as far as I can tell.

India: A Chev 30CWT GS, a White-Ruxtall 922.

I did not recheck which area I got them from, but there are also a few interesting shots of USMC IHC M24 vehicles in, I believe the
search field "South Carolina"

While I realize this is not necessarily the hot spot for CMP fans I do think that some of us also have other interests as well. If you are into aircraft, for example, there are hundreds of shots of Lend Lease planes. As well perhaps dozens of shots of artillery pieces and so on.

Have fun, have patience.

Bill

Hanno Spoelstra · #6 31-12-03, 20:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Bill Murray
For Hanno, there are at least two shots of the India Pattern Armoured Car (Ford based I guess) that I had never seen and a couple of shots of them being assembled. This was in the Lend Lease search group.

Bill,

Thanks for the heads-up. I have seen the archive before and posted some links to pictures of Indian Pattern Wheeled Carriers in the thread "India Pattern Carriers".

Regards,
Hanno

Bill Murray · #7 31-12-03, 23:35

Evening Hanno:

Hope by now you are well into the excellent Dutch Bols Geneever Gin and are almost ready to celebrate the New Year. Matter of fact, I just went downstairs to my liquor cabinet and lo and behold I still have about 1/4 litre of that exact brand left over. It was part of my household effects that were stored in Sweden when we spent a couple of years in Peru and eventually ended up in Canada that were kindly shipped to us in Toronto on Volvo's kronor. That would make it now 30 years old at least. Wonder if Bols gets better with age?? Since my employees gave me a bottle of Johnny Walker Black for Christmas I don't think I will try it tonight

As to "Links", the Web never ceases to amaze me. The two photos of the India Pattern vehicle were, of course, the same ones from the same source I just discovered and reported here.
It amazes me how we come upon these sites, especially you getting a heads up on this one as it is not what you would call a very common one. I am adding maybe 5-10 new sites a day to my "favorite places" file as AOL calls it and it is maddening sometimes to keep track of all of them. Just added that Swedish one "Photo Gallery of WW II" a minute ago. Luckily I am pretty fluent in Swedish so can get a lot out of it.

As a point of interest, I wonder if you share my feeling that there is rather a sad lack of books being published nowadays on the subject of WW II vehicles, both armour and soft skins. I started in this field of interest around 1966 and for the better part of 30 years, there were new books and magazines coming out all the time. My collection now numbers in the hundreds but with rather little new stuff published since the late 90's. I suppose it may be that many feel the field has been covered or maybe even over-covered but the existence of such forums as MLU would seem to put the lie to that as we are researching a lot deeper and making amazing discoveries of new photos and data almost weekly.

Speaking from the ripe old age of soon to be 64, I hope the younger chaps on this forum and others like it keep up the search for more and more information. All this stuff I have collected is supposed to be what I will be reading, organizing and enjoying when I retire and then hopefully pass on to others.

I will let it go for tonight. Please keep on passing on the links, they are invaluable. I will try to do the same even if there is some duplication of info from time to time.
Bill

David_Hayward (RIP) · #8 01-01-04, 10:22

Hopefully this year will see the first of the CMP books hit the shelves in the series. In the meantime buy HERITAGE COMMERCIALS magazine in the UK for choice military Bedford, CMP articles.

Bill Murray · #9 01-01-04, 14:29

Happy New Year David:

I did not mean to leave your efforts out but I was called to dinner and had to finish that last post.

Certainly all of us are awaiting your new publications with great anticipation and I hope you will keep us posted on developments. Yours will be the first in some time on the subject of softskin vehicles and having followed dozens of your posts I am sure they will be well worth the wait.

As to Heritage Commercials, can you provide an e-mail address. I have not found the magazine here in the US.

Regards Bill

David_Hayward (RIP) · #10 01-01-04, 15:20

http://www.heritagecommercials.com/

David_Hayward (RIP) · #11 01-01-04, 15:21

Bill, you are of course spot on and there has been nothing new for ages. So, I am cracking on!

Bill Murray · #12 02-01-04, 15:46

Thanks for the info David. I will contact them directly.
Due to the fact that Pat and I run a very large Hobby Store and November/December is "our time" in terms of volume, we usually work 7 days a week from Thanksgiving to New Years. Thus, I have not kept up that well with your book progress. Do you have any new timeline information?

Also, I have reorganized our Reference Section in the store and we now have two rows of shelving about 40' long each devoted to books and magazines about modelling cars/military vehicles/ships/planes. In that context, we carry the Schiffer line on German vehicles, Osprey, Squadron and so on that are devoted to the vehicles/ships/planes etc. from an historical perspective as opposed to the modelling side.

I would like to carry your book/books in the store if you can put me in touch with your distributor when you are ready to go. I am also going to post later on this Forum the same request for others who publish or distribute. The volume is reasonably good and I am sure every extra sale would help all involved.

Bill PS: You can email me at mostoysinc@aol.com as well.

Bill Murray · #13 04-01-04, 00:13

playing

Please everyone congratulate me for my first ever attempt to post a pic to this forum. Crappy picture and off topic but Hanno is a buddy so he won't complain too much.

Only took me 4 years to figure out the very basics.
Bill

Bill Murray · #14 06-01-04, 00:53

Hanno:

Did I upset you????????????
Bill

Hanno Spoelstra · #15 06-01-04, 10:03

Bill,

Upset me? No, it takes more than a succesful attempt to post a pic to this forum to upset me. Congratulations!

One is never too old to learn, huh?

Hanno

Hanno Spoelstra · #16 06-01-04, 12:07

Quote:

Originally posted by Bill Murray
As a point of interest, I wonder if you share my feeling that there is rather a sad lack of books being published nowadays on the subject of WW II vehicles, both armour and soft skins.
*snip*
I suppose it may be that many feel the field has been covered or maybe even over-covered but the existence of such forums as MLU would seem to put the lie to that as we are researching a lot deeper and making amazing discoveries of new photos and data almost weekly.

Speaking from the ripe old age of soon to be 64, I hope the younger chaps on this forum and others like it keep up the search for more and more information. All this stuff I have collected is supposed to be what I will be reading, organizing and enjoying when I retire and then hopefully pass on to others.

I will let it go for tonight. Please keep on passing on the links, they are invaluable. I will try to do the same even if there is some duplication of info from time to time.

Bill,

I'm not much of a jenever drinker, but I'm sure a good bottle of Bols will last forever. It seems your bottle travels well!

I agree with you on the subject of books. With the advent of the internet, huge amounts of material is made public, which is a good thing. But still we need knowledgeable people to put it all in context and provide accurate captions to many of those photos. Men like Vanderveen are sorely missed in this respect, but maybe in a couple of years time we will see publications from the hand of The Retired Murray?

To add to your collection, try searching the British Pathé site. There are many, many interesting vehicle still images (out of a grand total of some 12 million!) to be found there. Please note the film ID number for easy referral if you find anything interesting (like more pics of the Indian Pattern FAT

)

Hanno

Bill Murray · #17 07-01-04, 23:24

Hanno:

Quick question.
You post and host an awful lot of photos from a wealth of sites which I find very useful.
I lurk on the AWM photo site rather often due to it's being a gold mine of pics of all types of softskins. I also print off those that are of interest to me, probably rather a lot over the last 4 years or so. No copyright problems, they are on plain paper and with their logo all over them. Just for my own enjoyment.
Question is, has anyone ever put on this site or other similar ones the reference numbers or series of reference numbers for pics of interest so others don't have to spend the hours that I and for sure you, do to figure out where the good pics are?
I suppose the same would be true for the Pathe stuff that has cropped up and seems to be all the rage lately. Millions of images and the searches to find the good stuff would seem to me to be unproductive if each of us does their own search and does not share the info. Here, I don't mean the odd photo but perhaps which key words to use, which photo series yields a lot of stuff in a hurry and maybe which photographer to use in the search engine.
Just thoughts.
Bill

Hanno Spoelstra · #18 09-01-04, 11:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Bill Murray
Hanno:

Quick question.
You post and host an awful lot of photos from a wealth of sites which I find very useful.

Bill, yes I know I am sad and should get a life ...

Quote:

Originally posted by Bill Murray
Question is, has anyone ever put on this site or other similar ones the reference numbers or series of reference numbers for pics of interest so others don't have to spend the hours that I and for sure you, do to figure out where the good pics are?
I suppose the same would be true for the Pathe stuff that has cropped up and seems to be all the rage lately. Millions of images and the searches to find the good stuff would seem to me to be unproductive if each of us does their own search and does not share the info. Here, I don't mean the odd photo but perhaps which key words to use, which photo series yields a lot of stuff in a hurry and maybe which photographer to use in the search engine.

I always mention a full reference with any of the links to pictures I post on forums. Helps others (and myself) to find it back.

For the Australian War Memorial Collections Database, noting the Negative Number will enable anyone to find a picture again. It helps to quote the caption as well.

As for the British Pathé film stills, make sure to note the film ID and film title.

I have not found out (yet) how to uniquely identify and retrieve pictures from the Office of War Information Collection. For some reason it is not possible to search for a Digital ID provided with each photo once you find it.

Some other interesting online photo databases which I hope to explore sometime (after I'm retired, probably...):
- Hulton Getty
- U.S. Army Signal Corps Photograph Collection
- U.S. Army Center of Military History
- National Archives of Canada
- New Brunswick at War
- State Library of Victoria

Hope this keeps you busy for a while

Regards,
Hanno

P.S.: I moved part of the Chevrolet staff car captured at Dunkirk thread into this one for relevance.