Most of the time the soldiers and sailors who participated in World War II led serious lives. After all they were away from their families and loved ones, and most were in danger of losing their lives. At the same time, it was important to keep up their morale, and that of their families back home.
I found these two photographs in one of my mother's albums. My father is prominently pictured in each of them, and so no doubt he mailed them home to Mom during World War II. The first photograph depicts my father as a sugar baby (he's the little bearded baby on the right with the cigarette in his mouth).
In this second photograph, he is apparently an Asian prince garbed in silks. My dad always did love hats, so no wonder he looks so happy in the photo (he is 2nd from the right).
I haven't been able to locate any additional photographs similar to this one, although no doubt other navy personnel had them taken. My father was a bit of a scamp–he so loved to laugh. For most of the war my father was clean shaven, and so it is very possible that this photograph was taken at the end of the war, at least a year after August 1945.
Janice
*Additional Reading*
-Strategic Perfection and the U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides)-
–If WWII was an RTS (Real Time Strategy Game)–
-It never happened, But if It Had–
