MasterGoodale Posted January 28, 2003 Author Share Posted January 28, 2003 Hey, it WAS Dachau! That's what he said. I knew it had that sound in it. But definitely Dachau. Thanks. See? It's slowly coming together. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGoodale Posted January 28, 2003 Author Share Posted January 28, 2003 I looked at his little discharge paper, it was old and faded but I thought it said he was in the 524th field artillery. I can also verify this. I asked him in the email. He only lives 40 minutes away so I can drive or call if I have to. But if I drive I get to se the stuff myself and not hear a crickety old voice speak it over a phone. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manchildstein (ii) Posted January 28, 2003 Share Posted January 28, 2003 --Although I haven't heard back from Gramp on the email I sent him asking the questions I have, I talked with my wife last night to see if maybe she remembered the conversation better than I did. She said he was in Munich from 1942-1943 and that's when he found the camera (she's pretty sure)! So at least now the time frame is narrowed down. -- i think either a) your wife mis-heard your grandfather or your grandfather forgot the dates. there is practically no way he was both in munich in '42-'43 -and- served as a gunner in the battle of the bulge. ...and i believe the parts about being a gunner and finding the camera... i think simply that the commnication regarding the actual dates is garbled... as for the roll of film also containing pictures of stalin... it seems your grandfather found a 'stray camera' that had been owned by a 'real insider into the high european political circles' at the time, or on the other hand it's as someone else here speculated... a roll of 'pictures of pictures'... in the first case the find is astounding... in the 2nd case it's not so astounding but still highly interesting... just my opinion... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akdavis Posted January 28, 2003 Share Posted January 28, 2003 Originally posted by MasterGoodale: I looked at his little discharge paper, it was old and faded but I thought it said he was in the 524th field artillery. I can also verify this. I asked him in the email. He only lives 40 minutes away so I can drive or call if I have to. But if I drive I get to se the stuff myself and not hear a crickety old voice speak it over a phone. Hmm...the only reference I could find online to the 524th Field Artillery Battalion has it listed as part of the 38th Infantry Division (Indiana NG) in 1954. However, I cannot find the unit listed under the 38th ID's WW2 order-of-battle (which is good, cause that would mean your grandad had been in the Phillipines). Hopefully someone else will have a reference listing which division your grandad's battalion was attached to. If at all possible, double check his records to ensure that you have the correct unit. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGoodale Posted January 28, 2003 Author Share Posted January 28, 2003 I know, I may even have the unit wrong. If I don't hear from him soon I'm gonna call him and ask him a few things, without implying that he's old and forgetful :eek: . 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGoodale Posted January 28, 2003 Author Share Posted January 28, 2003 My buddy and I were just discussing how we will protect the photos. he's going to scan them at a very high res then put them on a CD for me to take home. I have Photoshop 5.0 and I think it lets you put a watermark on pictures that is really see through. I will only watermark copies of the original scanned pics. This way I can blow them up (not with tnt don't worry) and post them for you people to see without worrying about them being "stolen". Supposedly if the photo has a watermark it's very hard to get rid of it without ruining the original. Does this sound safe? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGoodale Posted January 28, 2003 Author Share Posted January 28, 2003 The woman next to whom I believe is Stalin in my pictures looks very much like the women on the left side of the very bottom photo standing next to the woman in white: Stalin's Second Wife? I don't know if the woman at this link I am describing was his wife, but they look very much alike. [ January 28, 2003, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: MasterGoodale ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RSColonel_131st Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Any news? and *bumb* 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunfat Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Originally posted by benpark: Posted by Yunfat: "don't even bother trying this project unless you have PS7, I dont know if anyone mentioned this, but its essential." Sorry, but this is hogwash. Don't Photoshop them. Do you want people questioning factual elements about the pictures? I would rather see a crack in a photograph than a badly(and I mean even by the best Photoshop Guru) retouched one. Opinions are like assholes I guess. Any photograph thats old will lose many of its original properties. Photoshop can return many of those properties to their initial state (the original mint condition photo or negative) reducing the amount of visual anomalies that are inherent with storing photos for long periods of time. Simple exposure to oxygen will cause any old photo paper to turn brownish yellow, a quick fix with the color correction tools of photoshop will solve this. A quick adjustment of contrast and brightness levels (very important for black and white pictures) can reduce many of the imperfections of the original exposure and print. Not to mention the imperfections incurred by a scan of said photo. You're right, hogwash. Thats why all my really old photos now look better than the originals, or rather, how the originals initially looked. I guess Adobe can stop making Photoshop now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frenchy Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 I could find no reference to the 524th FA Bn in my order of battle books I have at home...not even at Corps level. Perhaps numbers read wrong off of discharge papers...? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c3k Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Just a quickie here. MG said his grandfather served on "Long Tom's". I may be wrong, but the divisional 155's were NOT Long Tom's. There were very few of them in Europe, relatively speaking ( HEY! that's a pun! Get it? "relatively speaking" Oh, I'm good. ) I would think the separate 155 "Long Tom's" were Corps or Army level assets. Your grandfather's actual Field Artillery unit ID would clarify this. That would also point to areas of action and dates. Ken 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M Hofbauer Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Originally posted by MasterGoodale: Yeah but I can't seem to find any real good ones close up to compare to. Why doesn't aht make sense? By what he said, he was in Munich from 42-43 and probably moved around some, then was finally able to go home sometime in 46, probably early in the year I don't know. Because PanAm was reluctant to fly US tourists to Munich since every time they tried to land at the airport, the local AD would shoot them down, if not they had been shot down before by interceptors. For the same reason lufthansa had given up their transcontinental flights to NY and decided to use their Fw200 Condor to transport bombs instead of tourists. They called it "war. Originally posted by MasterGoodale: I think you are part right though. Either he had his dates mixed up or he said he arrived in Europe in 42/43, then found the camera at the end of the war.now that makes more sense. Guess he arrived in England in 1943 then went over the channel in 1944 and ended up in Munich in 1945. I agree with what you say about the artillery not being near Munich, that makes sense to me. But also, you mentioned that Munich was the first home of the Nazis, and 50% of these pictures are of nazis and other axis leaders, mixed in with what appears to my highly untrained eye to be insignificant buildings and alley ways, and sometimes groups of people talking from a distance that you can't identify. So the camera was most likely found in Munich like he said. The rest remains to be known. . .well, Munich was important in the beginning, but later it was Nuremberg and Berlin that had most of the public goings-on. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M Hofbauer Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Originally posted by yunfat: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by benpark: Posted by Yunfat: "don't even bother trying this project unless you have PS7, I dont know if anyone mentioned this, but its essential." Sorry, but this is <font color=yellow>hogwash</font>. Don't Photoshop them. Do you want people questioning factual elements about the pictures? I would rather see a crack in a photograph than a badly(and I mean even by the best Photoshop Guru) retouched one. Opinions are like assholes I guess. Any photograph thats old will lose many of its original properties. Photoshop can return many of those properties to their initial state (the original mint condition photo or negative) reducing the amount of visual anomalies that are inherent with storing photos for long periods of time. Simple exposure to oxygen will cause any old photo paper to turn brownish yellow, a quick fix with the color correction tools of photoshop will solve this. A quick adjustment of contrast and brightness levels (very important for black and white pictures) can reduce many of the imperfections of the original exposure and print. Not to mention the imperfections incurred by a scan of said photo. You're right, <font color=yellow>hogwash</font>. Thats why all my really old photos now look better than the originals, or rather, how the originals initially looked. I guess Adobe can stop making Photoshop now. </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunfat Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 My gift to the CMBB forums today : a beautiful never before seen photo of the Berlin Olympics, possibly taken by my father. Before and after with PS7. Here is the example... If you click the first photo you should be able to toggle between the photos for an instant comparison using the buttons at the bottom of the screen. I'll let you decide which looks better. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benpark Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Well, Yunfat, you are entitled to your opinion as well. I am just speaking with issues of historical credibility in mind. I would rather see the photograph in its original state. And yes, I am very familiar with Photoshop-check my website link in my profile if you think my credentials are not as solid as yours... [ January 29, 2003, 05:21 PM: Message edited by: benpark ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGoodale Posted January 30, 2003 Author Share Posted January 30, 2003 Well, I just showed like 10 of the pictures to an older guy I work with. He advises me that they are probably worth a lot of money after looking at them. Some of them he gasped when he saw them. Although he's not an expert, he said that the pictures I showed him (10 of about 40-50) were most definitely late 1930's because Hitler and his Nazis were wearing the "Brown Shirts". He advised me to not even touch them or scan them until I have had them appraised by a military photo expert and preserved professionally. He also said they are definitely originals and not photos of photos. I guess he could tell just by looking at them. I don't know what to do 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nabla Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Originally posted by MasterGoodale: Well, I just showed like 10 of the pictures to an older guy I work with. He advises me that they are probably worth a lot of money after looking at them. [snip] I don't know what to do See, that's what money does to people. Bored already. Seriously, find an expert. Someone here must know where to find one. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGoodale Posted January 30, 2003 Author Share Posted January 30, 2003 LOL! I was just showing them to another friend and the old guy was like "Oh yeah get your fingerprints all over them, that will increase their value" he's more paranoid then I am. I was eating chocolate and I dropped a picture on my desk on some chocolate flakes and he said 1000 historians just rolled over in their graves He's funny. . . 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrold Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 To ensure these pictures get securely into the hands of 'The Experts', perhaps a suggestion. First, gather eight or so fellow fans for protection during the journey... BDH 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGoodale Posted January 30, 2003 Author Share Posted January 30, 2003 Well my buddy and I scanned like 5 of them and they came out pretty nice. We were able to zoom in on some of them and see some really neat details. We only had about 45 minutes to mess with them so didn't get much done, but it convinced me to buy a scanner Now I have a good excuse to tell my wife! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrold Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Good thinking. I am interested in seeing the photos and hearing the rest of the story. BDH 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGoodale Posted January 30, 2003 Author Share Posted January 30, 2003 I should have some posted for all to see by Sunday! :mad: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 Originally posted by Frenchy: Ask him for his discharge papers. It should list the unit he was with (in most cases). I believe Munich fell to the 45th Infantry Division on 30 April 1945. The Division had 4 artillery batteries, 3 105s and 1 155. The 155 battery would have been 189th Field Artillery Battalion. Was this the unit your grandad was in? Frenchy, IIRC, MasterGoodale said that his Grandfather was with a "long tom" battallion...that's the 155mm gun, as opposed to the 155 howizer that equipped the 189th. The 155mm guns were found exclusively in corps and army artillery groups. Mastergoodale--- memory being the faulty tool that it can be ---is it possible that your Grandfather arrived in the UK in '42-43 during the pre-Normandy buildup of US forces? That's when it is logical for him to show up in Europe. He would have been available for commitment to the continent after Normandy (6 June, '44); could have done the Bulge (16 Dec 44-25 Jan 45) and could have ended up with the troops occupying Munich at the end of the war (US forces were largely concentrated in Southern Germany by then.) Mind you, I'm not doubting his word, only his memory after all these years may be a bit fuzzy as to chronology... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGoodale Posted January 31, 2003 Author Share Posted January 31, 2003 oh it's certainly possible. My own recollection of what he mumbled (and believe me he does mumble) is a little fuzzy. I didn't ask him explicit questions like I should have. His discharge paper was this little 3x3 faded paper card and it DID list his battalion, I just don't remember exactly what it said. The old gipper still hasn't replied to my email :mad: BTW I have like 5 or 6 photos that have been digitally scanned and enlarged. I am going to touch them up a little and post them for you all to look at tonight. I'm not worried about embedding a watermark or anything as I've been told that the originals are all that would be worth anything anyway. These aren't the best photos they are just a few I grabbed on the way out the door this morning. They look pretty good. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akdavis Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 Originally posted by MasterGoodale: He advised me to not even touch them or scan them until I have had them appraised by a military photo expert and preserved professionally. He also said they are definitely originals and not photos of photos. I guess he could tell just by looking at them. I don't know what to do Okay, before you waste your time looking for a "military photo expert," I'll go ahead and tell you that's probably not the best route. This isn't really military documentation you have, it's political. Someone familiar with photographic documentation of the Third Reich would be your best bet. A German history professor or a professional photography appraiser would be easier to find. Second of all, I seriously doubt your friend could tell whether or not they are copywork just by looking at a few prints. What expertise does he have that would qualify him to do so (besides being older)? Did he give you a reason why they are definitely not photos of photos? Third, have you acounted for the negatives yet? If not, then any speculation on value is futile. For all you know the negatives have been printed off of for years. Thus, there could be 100 prints of the same images floating around out there. Your prints are not the originals. The negatives are. And fourth, DO NOT EAT while handling historical documents. If I make a black&white print I want to last for a long time, it does not get touched by bare fingers from the moment the printing paper comes out of its box. Use white cotton gloves! Looking forward to seeing a few of these. Hopefully you picked some of the more "iconic" images. Exciting stuff, no? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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