1) Ca. 1950-1951. Seven grey card stock leaves fastened with a string. With 121 mounted gelatin silver photos, including 91 ca. 5,5x8 cm (2x3 in); the rest ca. 5,5x5,5 cm (2x2 in). Each leaf with a period ink caption, related to all images (“Korea, 1950-1951,” or “Korea cont.”). Overall a very good album of interesting photos.
2) Ca. 1951-1952. Oblong Octavo album (ca. 17,5x25,5 cm or 7x10 in). 35 black album leaves (19 blank). With 91 mounted and loosely inserted gelatin silver photos from ca. 8x11,5 cm (3 ¼ x 4 ½ in) to ca. 5,5x6,5 cm (2 x 2 ½ in). Seven pages with period pen captions related to all images on a page. Period brown faux leather album fastened with a string. Front board with a crack on the hinge, several leaves with minor tears on extremities, but overall a very good album of interesting photos.
3) Ca. 1951-1952. Oblong Folio album (ca. 28,5x35,5 cm or 11 ¼ x 14 in). 30 black album leaves (16 blank). With 145 mounted gelatin silver photos from ca. 8x11,5 cm (3 x 4 ½ in) to ca. 9x9 cm (3 ½ x 3 ½ in). With mounted real photo postcards, two loosely inserted gelatin silver photos (one large, ca. 20,5x25 cm; one with the date “April 1951” on verso), several newspaper clippings, a greeting card addressed from “U.S.N.S. General W.M. Black” and one piece of printed ephemera. Period blue faux leather album fastened with a string. Two images possibly previously removed from the album, a few photos mildly faded, but overall a very good album of interesting photos.
4) Ca. 1950s. Folio album (ca. 27,5x24 cm or 10 ¾ x 9 ¼ in). 38 card stock leaves (7 blank). With 102 mounted and four loosely inserted gelatin silver photos, including over thirty large images from ca. 13x17,5 cm (5x7 in) to ca. 10,5x15 cm (4x6 in); the rest are from ca. 10x12 cm (4x5 in) to ca. 5,5x7,5 cm (2x3 in). No captions. With two period newspaper clippings mounted or loosely inserted. Period green cloth folder, rubbed on extremities, a few photos mildly faded, but overall a very good album of interesting photos.
5) Ca. 1950s. Folio ring binder (ca. 30x25 cm or 11 ¾ x 9 ¾ in). 26 card stock leaves within protective plastic sleeves (one blank). With 200 mounted gelatin silver photos, mostly ca. 8x11 cm (3 x 4 ½ in); a dozen smaller images are ca. 6x8,5 cm (2 ¼ x 3 ¼ in). No captions. Ca. 14 images previously removed from the album, one protective sheet with a tear, a few photos mildly faded, but overall a very good album of interesting photos.
6) Ca. 1951-1954. 20 large loose gelatin silver photos ca. 21x25,5 cm (8x10 in). All photos with ink stamps “Official USAF Photo by Feaf Base Photo Lab” or “U.S. Air Force Photo” on verso; most are numbered in negative; eleven images with ink-stamped censors’ permits on verso and attached paper leaves with typewritten dates and annotations. One photo with a minor loss of surface in the left upper corner, but overall a good collection of strong interesting photos.

Historically significant extensive collection of original gelatin silver photos, taken and collected by American servicemen during the Korean War (1950-1953) and showing Korea, its people, American military establishments, aircraft, naval ships, American and Korean officers and soldiers, &c.

The folder with 121 photos from the active phase of the war and opens with a photo of the burned Capitol Building in Seoul (it was damaged during the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). The other images show military actions with American planes and trucks, artillery guns (including an image of a firing gun), tanks decorated with pictures of shark teeth or tiger heads, destroyed tanks, a welcome sign to the “Kimpo Air Base” near Seoul, military tent camps, “Robert W. Carney bridge” (pontoon), a damaged entrance gate, Korean soldiers, American and UN soldiers (firing machine guns, drinking beer, posing with artillery guns or in their tents, &c.). There are also several images of Korean city streets, villages and rice fields, portraits of elders, families, young women, children, &.c

The album compiled by “Corporal Pierce” of the U.S. Army documents his service on the South Korean side of the 38th parallel during the stalemate on the front, which started in July 1951 and lasted until the armistice in July 1953. The images are organized in the following groups: “Chunchon, Korea, Dec. 1951 – Jan. 1952” (American military camp near Chuncheon, tents, trucks, soldiers digging trenches or fortifications, &c.); “Chunchon, Korea, Feb. 1952” (American camp, Korean soldiers playing volleyball, the compiler and other servicemen in a communication room, &c.); “Co. Hdq. Kapyong, May 1952” (a Korean boy in military uniform, the compiler inside his tent, tents, trucks, a river, American soldiers eating inside their tent, &c.); “August 20, 1952, Kumhwa, Korea. Formal inspection of the 11 R.O.K. Div. by Gens. Van Fleet, Jenking, Chung, &c. Sigmon [sic!] Rhee” (President of ROK Syngman Rhee and military officials walking on the territory of a base, a military review, Korean soldiers, the compiler in a communications room); and “Tom Look and Cpl. Pierce, Sept. 1952. Taking off fo R.+ R.” (a portrait captioned on verso “Tom Look and I just before we left,” American soldiers in their camp).

The album, compiled by one Albert Marion Cox from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, who was sent to Korea via Japan on board the U.S.N.S. “General W.M. Black” in May 1951, includes photos of American field camps, a pontoon bridge, rivers, convoys of military trucks, scenes with American soldiers washing in a stream, digging into a hillside, play fighting, building fortifications, smoking, eating; portraits of Korean and African American soldiers in a camp, &c. There are also several images of an American military base, its facilities (barracks, church, “guard house,” “post exchange/snack bar”) and servicemen. A large photo shows the interior of an officer’s quarters. The ephemera includes a humorous certificate given to Albert Cox after his first crossing of the Equator in April 1951, newspaper clippings regarding the “Korea GI Bill,” a prayer leaf “From a news sheet we get once in a while” (compiler’s pen caption), a typewritten poem “At Korea on the spot” about the hardships of young American soldiers and their feelings of being forgotten, &c. Two real photo postcards show U.S. naval ships “Joe P. Martinez” and “Marine Adder.”

Very interesting is the folder with over a hundred photos showing the life of civilians in South Korea during the war. The images include vivid street scenes (most likely in Seoul): main streets and back alleys, a “Beer and whisky [sic!] shop,” a building with a sign “Off limits UN Forces and merchant seamen, all bldgs in this area,” a shack village on a river bank, entrance to “Hotel Obon,” a tram car stop, a traditional wedding scene, a military review. Two photos show sick or starving Korean children lying unattended on the streets; a clipping from an English-language newspaper describes a story of a homeless girl in Seoul. Two photos (and two of their enlarged copies) depict a scene of public prosecution; a truck with the number “U.S.A. 20933755” is seen on the right. One photo shows a street in Busan with the Customs House building on the far right. There are also interesting portraits of Korean people - elders, families having meals, women doing laundry in a city canal, men carrying cargo and animals, women carrying water, a girl walking next to a barbed-wire fence, children bathing in a river, homeless children sleeping on a street, a carpenter in his workshop, a street shoe cleaner, Korean soldiers on horses, elders in traditional costumes, an Allied soldier sitting in a military truck with a baby, &c.

The ring binder with over 200 images includes scenes of public service at an American military cemetery, views of an American military base and port in Korea (general views, American naval ships in the harbour, interior of soldiers’ barracks, welcome arch “Headquarters 226 Ordnance Base Depot,” entrances to “Ordnance Oasis Club” and “Service Club, Everyone invited,” public festivities, a soldier at a table with piles of U.S. dollar banknotes, a Christmas tree, a soldier cutting turkey), an airfield, Korean cities and villages, a hospital with signs and English and Chinese characters, local temples, terraced rice fields, barbed wire fences, a railway station, portraits of Korean children, young women, an entertainment for American soldiers of the “335 Ord. Bn.,” offering to “Dunk the bathing beauty, 3 balls, 25 c.,” &c.

The twenty large photos with the stamps of the US Air Force show a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter evacuating “wounded UN personnel” “somewhere in North Korea” (dated January 9, 1952); AF helicopter at a radio station “near the frontlines;” a military air interceptor of Japan Air Defense Force working at the radar (dated July 7, 1953); a pilot of a Combat cargo plane outlining his flight course over the Kyushu Island of Japan (dated July 16, 1953); medical treatment of an American military pilot (dated July 23, 1953); an AF pilot testing survival equipment (dated September 4, 1953); “Okinawa Helicopter simulates sea resque” (dated September 18, 1953); training a sentry dog of the “U.S. Air Force 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing in Korea” (dated October 24, 1953); “Germ slides inspected by entomologist in Korea” (dated December 12, 1953); champions of Air Force football championship (dated December 31, 1953); delivering cargo for the Fifth Air Force in Korr in a “mule train” truck (dated January 6, 1954), American military planes and helicopters, anti-aircraft guns, a paratrooper jumping off a plane, &c.

Overall an important extensive collection of original photographs documenting various events and aspects of the Korean War.