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RARE WWII WW2 ORIG 2 PHOTOS B-24 CREW AFRICAN AMERICAN? USAAF AIR FORCE PACIFIC

$ 5.27

Availability: 100 in stock

Description

Will be listing a number of photos taken from an American airman's photo album in the coming month or so.  He was apparently a P-51 fighter pilot in the South Pacific.
VERY unusual pair of photos of a B-24 bomber crew - the guys on the right swapped out taking the photos, thus, two photos.  The album that all these came from was from a P-51 pilot who lived in New Orleans, I'm in Baton Rouge.  I'm not trying to make this sound racist in ANY way, but I've looked at these two photos many times with a lighted magnifying glass and the warrant officer in the center of the photo genuinely appears to be an African-American, or at the very least, what we commonly refer to as a "Creole" person in Louisiana!  Maybe he's not, but the photos are a lot more clear in person than they are in these images, and most everybody I've shown these to agrees with me - he's either a black crew member or he's creole.  Either way, it's very unusual and I find it doubly unusual that the officer in one photo is giving him a not-too-friendly look!   Perhaps he was a replacement crewman?  Maybe that's why he's a warrant officer?  Who knows?  Would be a fascinating research project as the AAF wasn't desegregated at that time, so, on paper, he couldn't be an African-American and be serving with a white bomber crew.  But, if he was Creole mixed race and his birth certificate listed him as "white", he could have been.  Wish I knew more about this one!   Photo is in nice shape and clear, I don't have a scanner so I'm taking photos of the photos.
Please ask questions first, all sales final, will ship to U.S. addresses ONLY!  Buyer pays for USPS first class postage.  Thanks much!