Vintage Photos of Japanese-American Life After the War in the 1940s

On February 19, 1942, shortly after Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, a policy that people of Japanese ancestry would be forced to relocate and incarcerated in concentration camps in the western interior of the States. 

Following a Supreme Court decision in 1944, which ruled that the War Relocation Authority “has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure,” the interment came to an end, even though it was not only until March 1946 that the last camp was officially shut down. 

These photographs taken by American photographer Charles Mace below depict the Japanese-American reintegrating into American society after the wartime internment, but in retrospect, it is difficult not to consider them as pure propaganda for the government:

Children have their own standards in their selection of friends and playmates, Libertyville, Illinois, 1943.

A committee on housing is shown in session in Indianapolis. Mrs. Royal McLain (left) is seen discussing ways and means of finding suitable quarters for the many relocatees who are finding employment in Indianapolis, 1943.

Miss Susie Yuasa, 18, a former evacuee from the Jerome Relocation Center, now employed in a Chicago candy factory, turns from her task momentarily to display the familiar symbol of victory, 1943.

Miss Irene Eiko Yonemura works in the Peoria, Illinois, public library, where she has found work much to her liking and her training. Miss Yonemura is from the Poston center and came to Peoria in the summer of 1943, 1944.

Another freedom of considerable importance to the young feminine mind in America is the freedom to shop for and wear pretty clothes. These two Nisei girls are again enjoying that privilege, Chicago, Illinois, 1943.

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Vintage Photos of British Army and Royal Navy Celebrating Christmas in World War II

Christmas is one of the few times during the whole year people briefly pause their busy life to gather with loved ones to celebrate the season, which was immensely difficult during wartime, as families were forced to separate: men were battling on the front line, women were serving in the military or working in factories for war effort, and children were evacuated to safer areas far away from home. Nevertheless, people still tried their best to make the most of it. Take a look back at the men and women of the British Army and Royal Navy celebrating the season during the Second World War through 19 fascinating vintage black and white photographs:

Men of the Border Regiment enjoying Christmas dinner at Mouchin in France, 1939. (IMW)

A member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service kissing a soldier under the mistletoe, 1939. (Hulton)

A couple kissing under the mistletoe before the soldier leaving London to re-join his unit, 1939. (Gerry Cranham)

A bomber pilot of the British Coastal Command affixing a sprig of mistletoe to his aircraft to acknowledge Christmas, 1940. (Reg Speller)

Royal Navy sailors drinking rum to celebrate Christmas on a British minesweeper on patrol off the coast of England, 1940. (Popperfoto)

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Lee Miller and David Scherman: The Photographers Who Took a Bath in Hitler’s Apartment

On April 30, 1945, photojournalists David E. Scherman and Lee Miller produced one of the most controversial photographic series of the twentieth century; while documenting Hitler’s apartment on the day of his suicide, they photographed each other bathing in the Führer’s tub.

Contact sheet, “Lee Miller in Hitler’s Bathtub, Munich, Germany 1945” © Lee Miller Archives

The contact print reveals that Miller had Scherman take seven shots in all. The sequence of shots suggests that Miller had something very specific in mind, as her head and her gaze are only slightly adjusted for each pose. Each image appears carefully calibrated, and the ostensible pleasure of bathing is nowhere in evidence. The photos reveal nothing of what Scherman retrospectively described as her “leisurely, overdue bath.”

But in the best known she is looking up and away, toward a distant point, pensive and beautiful, scrubbing her shoulder with a wash cloth while Hitler looks on. She has turned her gaze away from him. As Miller would put it years later, “I washed the dirt of Dachau off in his tub.”

The washcloth appears to serve more as a prop than a functional accessory for the task at hand. Scherman’s photographs are much more animated. He mugs for the camera as he vigorously washes his hair, completely altering the tone of the scene. While Hitler’s image remains present, it has been moved so that it is partially behind a soap dish—a minor detail, to be sure, but it does seem to compromise the presence that is so striking in Miller’s photographs. Scherman’s boots, in contrast to Miller’s, are pointed away from the tub, clearly a better position for exiting the tub rather than entering.

The simplest interpretations argue that Miller enters the bath and washes away the dirt, still visible on her boots, from Dachau. Lee signaled the end of the Reich in a more subtle way, both symbolic and playful, by being photographed by Scherman washing off the war—in Hitler’s own bath. The boots on the bath mat had walked through the horror of the Dachau death camp earlier in the same day.

The residual dirt from Dachau was of course invisible to readers, who were not privy to the fact that the photograph followed Miller’s presence at the newly liberated camp earlier that day. Even so, it is doubtful that Miller imagined she could wash off even part of the war in the wake of what she had witnessed, leaving aside the question of whether she wanted to do so. After all, forgetting would betray her whole purpose.

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Pictures of Veronica Foster – Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl and the Beautiful Woman War Worker of Canada in World War II

Veronica Foster (January 2, 1922 – May 4, 2000), popularly known as “Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl”, was a Canadian icon representing nearly one million Canadian women who worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions and matériel during World War II. Her natural beauty made her the perfect model for a national propaganda poster campaign.

Foster worked for John Inglis Co. Ltd producing Bren light machine guns on a production line on Strachan Avenue in Toronto, Ontario. She can be seen as the Canadian precursor to the American cultural icon Rosie the Riveter.

She became popular after a series of propaganda posters were produced; most images featured her working for the war effort, but others depicted more casual settings like Foster dancing the jitterbug or attending a dinner party. In her most famous photograph, Ronnie sports curve-hugging overalls while effortlessly exhaling smoke from her cigarette as she admires her recently assembled Bren gun.

As the perfect blend of femininity and female liberation, Ronnie became the subject of public infatuation, so much so that the United States decided to create its own female war icon. And so Ronnie’s head scarf and can-do attitude was transferred to the well-known American propaganda image of “Rosie the Riveter.”

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Women Testing the Guns They Made for World War II at the Inglis Munitions Plant in Ontario, Canada, 1944

Ten pretty girls, all workers at the John Inglis Co. plant, line up with 10 Bren guns built with their own hands, 1944. These little guns are going to Allied forces all over the world-but Brens cost a lot of money, Canadian money. One $100 bond will buy approximately three Bren guns; at their present cost. It takes a lot of bonds to keep the Inglis plant making Brens.

(Photo: Toronto Star Archives)

John Inglis and Company was a Canadian manufacturing firm which made weapons for the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth military forces during the World War II era, then later became a major appliance manufacturer. Whirlpool Corporation acquired control of Inglis in 1987 and changed the company's name to Whirlpool Canada in 2001.

The Inglis name has a proud heritage in Canada. In 1859, armed with metalworking and pattern-making skills learned in England and Scotland, John Inglis moved to Guelph, Ontario and started Mair, Inglis and Evatt which built machinery for grist and flour mills.

In 1881, operating under the name John Inglis and Sons, the company moved to facilities on Strachan Avenue in Toronto. But in 1898, with the enterprise growing madly, John Inglis died. William, one of John’s five sons, assumed leadership of the business. In 1902, he led the company into the manufacture of marine steam engines and waterworks pumping engines, and he discontinued production of its previous product line.

When William Inglis died in 1935, the new Toronto Island Ferry was named after him in appreciation of his significant contribution to the city’s industrial and cultural progress.

Veronica Foster, an employee of John Inglis Co. Ltd. and known as “Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl” posing with a finished Bren gun in the John Inglis Co. Ltd. Bren gun plant, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1941.

Two years later, an American named Major J.E. Hahn, purchased the company and made significant changes to its operations. Under Major Hahn’s leadership, the company assisted in the World War II effort by manufacturing guns for the Canadian and British governments. More than 17,800 people were employed at this time creating the need for expansion at the Strachan Avenue plant.

When the war ended in 1946, the company began to manufacture consumer products for the first time. Fishing tackle, house trailers, oil burner pumps and domestic heaters and stoves were among the diverse products offered.

Miss War Worker Beauty Contest in Toronto, Canada, 1942

On July 18, 1942, more than 100 contestants from Canada’s major military manufacturing plants vied for the title of “Miss War Worker.” The winner, Dorothy Linham, starred in a Palmolive Soap advertisement.

During the Second World War, every country had its ways of keeping the troops and war workers motivated. From female celebrities performing on stage or arranging pageants like this, the purpose was to keep spirits up and let everyone have fun. These photos were taken in 1942 at the “Miss War Worker” beauty contest and these ladies helped the war effort.

A Soldier’s Face After Four Years of War, 1941-1945

In 1941, Evgeny Stepanovich Kobytev was a young man ready to start his creative life as an artist when Germany attacked the Soviet Union and he had to join the Army. Four years later, the difference in his face is striking. A thin and tired face, deep wrinkles, a troubled stare, this man was completely changed after witnessing 4 years of a no-rule war in the Eastern Front.

These two pictures are shown side by side in the Andrei Pozdeev museum. The museum caption reads: “(Left) The artist Eugen Stepanovich Kobytev the day he went to the front in 1941. (Right) In 1945 when he returned”. This the human face after four years of war. The first picture looks at you, the second one looks through you.

Evgeny Stepanovich Kobytev was born on December 25, 1910 in the village of Altai. After graduating from pedagogical school, he worked as a teacher in the rural areas of Krasnoyarsk. His passion was painting especially portraits and panoramas from daily life. The dream for a higher artistic education came true in 1936 when he started studying at the Kyiv State Art Institute in Ukraine.

In 1941 he graduated with honors from the art institute and was ready for a new artistic life. However, all his dreams were cut short on June 22, 1941 when Nazi Germany attacked Soviet Union. The new artist voluntarily became a soldier and enlisted in one of the artillery regiments of the Red Army. The regiment was engaged in a fierce battle to protect the small town of Pripyat, which lies between Kiev and Kharkiv.

In September 1941, Kobytov was wounded in the leg and became a prisoner of war. He ended up in a German notorious concentration camp operated out of Khorol, which was called “Khorol pit” (Dulag #160). Approximately 90 thousand prisoners of war and civilians died in this camp.

Built on the grounds of what used to be a brick factory, the Khorol camp had only one barracks; it was half-rotten and rested on posts that were leaning to one side. It was the only shelter from the autumn rains and storms. Only a few of the sixty thousand prisoners managed to cram in there. The rest had no barracks. In the barracks people stood pressed tightly against each other. They were gasping from the stench and the vapors and were drenched with sweat.

In 1943, Kobytev managed to escape from captivity and again rejoined the Red Army. He participated in various military operations throughout Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Germany. After the Second World War ended, he was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal for his excellent military service during the battles for liberation of Smila and Korsun in Ukraine. However, the High Command refused to award him the Victory over Germany medal since his military career was “spoiled” for being a prisoner of war.

(via Rare Historical Photos)

Sharing Bananas With a Goat During the Battle of Saipan, ca. 1944

A lovely photo of marine First Sergeant Neil I. Shober of Fort Wayne, Indiana, sharing the spoils of war bananas with a native goat, one of the few survivors of the terrific naval and air bombardment in support of the Marines hitting the beach on the Japanese-mandated island of Saipan, ca. 1944.

(Photo: National Museum of the Pacific War)

The Battle of Saipan was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands from June 15 to July 9, 1944.

The Allied invasion fleet embarking the expeditionary forces left Pearl Harbor on June 5, 1944, the day before Operation Overlord in Europe was launched. The U.S. 2nd Marine Division, 4th Marine Division, and the Army’s 27th Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant General Holland Smith, defeated the 43rd Infantry Division of the Imperial Japanese Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Yoshitsugu Saito.

The loss of Saipan, with the deaths of at least 29,000 troops and heavy civilian casualties, precipitated the resignation of Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tōjō and left the Japanese archipelago within the range of United States Army Air Forces B-29 bombers.

Rare Photographs of 18-Year-Old Ernest Hemingway in Italy During World War I

In the winter and spring of 1918, Ernest Hemingway churned out several feature stories for The Kansas City Star about military recruiting campaigns. The Navy, the Tank Corps, and even the British had set up local offices to seek troops after the United States joined its allies in Europe.

Hemingway at the time was a recent high school graduate who had landed a reporting job in Kansas City in lieu of going to college or enlisting. At 18, he was too young to join without parental permission, but he talked a lot about getting into the war, a desire he expressed in several letters to his sister Marcelline. After arriving in Kansas City in mid-October 1917, he joined the Missouri Guard and even trained at Swope Park. Further military service was not in the cards, but a Kansas City friendship led him down another path toward serving in the war. In February 1918, the American Red Cross announced it was seeking volunteers to join the ambulance service in Italy. Hemingway most likely heard about this directly from Dell D. Dutton, who ran the Red Cross office in Kansas City. Still wanting to participate in the war effort, Hemingway signed up with the Red Cross as an ambulance driver.

Upon leaving the US, Hemingway first traveled to Paris, and then received orders to report to Milan. A short time later, he moved to the town of Schio where he worked driving ambulances. While delivering chocolates and cigarettes to soldiers on the front, Hemingway was seriously injured on July 8, 1918 by fragments from an Austrian mortar shell. Though badly wounded by the mortar, and hit by machine gun fire as well, Hemingway worked to secure the safety of his fellow soldiers, getting them out of harms way.

Hemingway’s friend Ted Brumbach, who visited him in the hospital, wrote to Hemingway’s parents that: “A third Italian was badly wounded and this one Ernest, after he had regained consciousness, picked up on his back and carried to the first aid dugout. He says he did not remember how he got there, nor that he carried the man, until the next day, when an Italian officer told him all about it and said that it had been voted to give him a valor medal for the act.” As Brumbach reported, Hemingway was awarded an Italian medal of valor, the Croce de Guerra, for his service. As he wrote in his own letter home after the incident: “Everything is fine and I am very comfortable and one of the best surgeons in Milan is looking after my wounds.”

Hemingway spent time recovering at a hospital in Milan, where he met Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse originally from Washington D.C. She was six years older than Hemingway, but nevertheless he fell in love with her, and planned to take her home to Oak Park. Agnes never did return with Hemingway as planned. Her involvement with an Italian officer ended their relationship. His time spent recovering in the Milan hospital, and his failed romance with Agnes von Kurowsky served as inspiration for Hemingway’s famous novel, A Farewell to Arms.

Hemingway returned to Italy throughout his life, during his many travels to Europe and around the world.

WWI Red Cross ambulance in Italy, 1918.

Ernest Hemingway in an American Red Cross ambulance, Italy.

Ernest Hemingway during his time in Italy, 1918.

Ernest Hemingway riding a bicycle in Italy, 1918.

Portrait of Ernest Hemingway as an American Red Cross volunteer in Milan, Italy.

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The Story of August Landmesser, the Lone German Who Refused to Give a Nazi Salute on June 13, 1936

On June 13, 1936, the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany held a ceremony to launch its latest sailing vessel, the 295-foot barque Horst Wessel, named for a Nazi activist who was killed by communists in 1930 and treated as a martyr as part of party propaganda.

The event was headlined by a speech from Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess with Adolf Hitler at his side. Wessel’s mother christened the ship with a bottle of champagne, and the assembled crowd of workers and onlookers gave an enthusiastic Nazi salute.

Except for one.

August Landmesser was 26 years old when he stood in the crowd with his arms defiantly and conspicuously crossed over his chest.

August Landmesser refused to do the “Sieg Heil” salute during a Nazi rally at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg on June 13, 1936.

In 1931, hoping it would help him get a job, Landmesser joined the Nazi Party. In 1935, when he became engaged to Irma Eckler (a Jewish woman), he was expelled from the party. They registered to be married in Hamburg, but the Nuremberg Laws enacted a month later prevented it. Their first daughter, Ingrid, was born on October 29, 1935.

In 1937, Landmesser and Eckler tried to flee to Denmark but were apprehended. She was again pregnant, and he was charged and found guilty in July 1937 of “dishonoring the race” under Nazi racial laws. He argued that neither he nor Eckler knew that she was fully Jewish, and was acquitted on May 27, 1938 for lack of evidence, with the warning that a repeat offense would result in a multi-year prison sentence. The couple publicly continued their relationship, and on July 15, 1938 he was arrested again and sentenced to two and a half years in the Börgermoor concentration camp.

The first and only photo of the family, June 1938. Although it was forbidden for them to meet, they appeared together in public and put themselves at exceptional risk.

Eckler was detained by the Gestapo and held at the prison Fuhlsbüttel, where she gave birth to a second daughter, Irene. From there she was sent to the Oranienburg concentration camp, the Lichtenburg concentration camp for women, and then the women’s concentration camp at Ravensbrück. A few letters came from Irma Eckler until January 1942. It is believed that she was taken to the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in February 1942, where she was among the 14,000 killed; in the course of post-war documentation, in 1949 she was pronounced legally dead, with a date of April 28, 1942.

Portrait of Irma Eckler.

Meanwhile, Landmesser was discharged from prison on January 19, 1941. He worked as a foreman for the haulage company Püst. The company had a branch at the Heinkel-Werke (factory) in Warnemünde. In February 1944 he was drafted into a penal battalion, the 999th Fort Infantry Battalion. He was declared killed in action, after fighting in Croatia on October 17, 1944. Like Eckler, he was legally declared dead in 1949.

August Landmesser in 1935.

Their children were initially taken to the city orphanage. Ingrid was later allowed to live with her maternal grandmother while Irene went to the home of foster parents in 1941. Ingrid was also placed with foster parents after her grandmother’s death in 1953.

The marriage of August Landmesser and Irma Eckler was recognized retroactively by the Senate of Hamburg in the summer of 1951, and in the autumn of that year Ingrid assumed the surname Landmesser. Irene continued to use the surname Eckler.

Incredible Vintage Photos of Belfast During German Air Raids in 1941

Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom and the second-largest on the island of Ireland.

By the early 19th century, Belfast became a major port. Shipbuilding was a key industry; the Harland and Wolff shipyard, which built the RMS Titanic, was the world’s biggest shipyard.

The images in this album are from the Records of the Cabinet Secretariat, Official War History of Northern Ireland.

The photographs show the extent of the destruction caused during German air raid attacks on the city of Belfast in April and May 1941.

Bridge Street, Belfast, May 8th 1941

Soldier on Bridge Street, Belfast, May 8th 1941

Waring Street, Belfast, May 1941

York Street, Belfast, May 1941

“Land of Hope and Glory”, York Road, Belfast, April 16th, 1941

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Vintage Photos Capture Farewell Scenes at Penn Station in World War II

At the height of the Second World War, in April 1943, LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt came to Penn Station and captured the sorrowful farewell scenes between young soldiers and their families. These forlorn figures, who were bidding goodbyes, seemed to anxiously fear that they might never have any chance to reunite with their loved ones after this departure.

Here’s how LIFE described the scenes in its February 14, 1944 issue:

They stand in front of the gates leading to the trains, deep in each other’s arms, not caring who sees or what they think.

Each goodbye is a drama complete in itself, which Eisenstaedt’s pictures movingly tell. Sometimes the girl stands with arms around the boys’ waist, hands tightly clasped behind. Another fits her head into the curve of his cheek while tears fall onto his coat. Now and then the boy will take her face between his hands and speak reassuringly. Or if the wait is long they may just stand quietly, not saying anything. The common denominator of all these goodbyes is sadness and tenderness, and complete oblivion for the moment to anything but their own individual heartaches.

Below are 34 black-and-white photographs capture the farewells at the station: