the Aleutian Solution

I have a terrible addiction to collecting photographs. They are the ultimate poor man's collectible: small, easy to store and display, cheap, and everywhere. If I'm out at an antique store and see a box of photos, I can't help myself. I've spent literally hours digging through boxes, breaking my back, looking like a total creeper to the employees, to find some of the best snapshots and portraits. I prefer to find them this way as opposed to buying individual ones online or from fancy photo people because a) they are cheaper, b) the sellers usually don't have any sort of attachment to them, and c) it's more fun. It's much more satisfying to find something out of a gigantic box that you had to sift through literally an entire generation of photographed life than to point and click a Buy It Now on ebay.
The standard types of WWII photos commonly found in antique stores and flea markets can be grouped into three categories:
1. the Posed Snapshot--soldier is standing by himself, with family, or his buddies
2. Formal Studio Portraits--individual, wedding, or family
3. Candids--these are not as common as you may think; generally, everyone would at least make an attempt to stop and pose
While they all have great aspects to them, I have an affinity for formal portraits. Often you find them still in their cardboard frames, a popular design being one that you could fold backward to make it stand. They are the quintessential tool in making the connection that these men were, in fact, real people who had individual faces and lives. Sometimes they're personally signed, or their name is written on the back. Or, more often, there is nothing, and the only remaining identification in the picture is their uniform. Usually it's the standard uniform with a division patch, but sometimes there is more, including ribbon bars, insignia, and (more rarely) distinctive unit insignia (DI).
The other day I was rifling through a box of photographs in a store and came across this portrait, about 3x5," securely still in it's original frame (the fold-back style). I paid $1.80 for it (it was $2, but there was a sale, ooooh).

There is no name or date, but his visible insignia sent me on a wild research hunt that nearly drove me mad. I started off with his collar insignia, crossed cannons with a bullet in the middle. At first I didn't notice the bullet, or could barely tell what it was. So that was a start.

Coastal Artillery collar discs

(online photo)

He wears a Pacific service ribbon (I have to brag, even though it's black and white, I can tell, ayoo), with a single campaign star, so it was narrowing down to coastal artillery with Pacific service. That's only like...everywhere in the Pacific, right? What was driving me crazy was the distinctive unit shield on his cap and lapels, because you can see it, yet not see it from the lighting and, you know, it being a 70 year old photograph. I couldn't decipher the writing on it, or else that would have made it easier. No, instead, I had to track down every coastal artillery unit insignia looking for it. Finally, I came across an image of it in some giant pdf of coastal artillery unit history. I couldn't believe it--I'd found it! And it only took like three damn hours!

It turned out to be the insignia of the 206th Arkansas National Guard Coast Artillery (CA) Regiment, which participated in the Aleutian Islands campaign in Alaska. They fought in the Battle of Dutch Harbor in 1942, and take credit for shooting down the infamous "Akutan Zero," the first flyable Japanese Zero captured by the US. It was used to devise tactics to defeat the Zero, and is described as one of the greatest prizes of the Pacific war (it was destroyed in a training accident in 1945).

the only image I could find of original insignia

Here you can see the shield, as well as the Good Conduct ribbon and Pacific service ribbon. The Aleutian Islands qualified for a campaign star.

The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign medal

Obviously this is not this particular soldier's medal (the service ribbon was created early in the war, and so was worn throughout), it is the one in my collection, but I'm including it here as an example. While they were all made after the end of the war, you can tell which ribbons are older by how they feel: the older (I guess you could say original?) ones are silk, and are very soft and flexible, where newer reproductions are stiff and ridgy (the tween in me would say stiff and...ribbed?). The red, white and blue stripes down the middle represent the US, and the red and white stripes represent Japan.

We'll never know the name of this man, and like all unnamed photos like this, it leaves me with nagging questions when I see it. Did he survive the war? Who did this photo belong to? How did it wind up in a dirty box at an antique store? Regardless of his fate, his portrait has become another representative of the thousands of names listed on memorials across the world. Remember--for every name you see on a wall, there was a photo just like this one that belonged to it, casualty or survivor. Now, rather than being discarded and forgotten in a box, this photograph can bring a soldier back to life, wearing a shield with the fitting reminder: "Never Give Up."