[JAPANESE WWII ALBUM OF PHOTOGRAPHS].

大東亞戰争寫眞集. [Daitōa shashinshū].
Photograph Collection of the Greater East Asia War

Tokyo. 海軍省. [Kaigunshō]. 1942- 44. Stock ID #219926

Over 100 photographs, mainly commercially produced with printed captions (a small number personal) and 4 newspaper clippings laid down in photograph album. Photographs vary from 5.5 x8cm to 11.5 x 7.5cm. Cloth covered album measures 25.5x19cm. Attractive book plate on endpaper. Endpapers a little browned, a little silvering but photographs overall in good to very good condition.

A fascinating Japanese wartime photo album, containing a combination of professionally produced photos and private family photos. The opening pages of the album contain a commercially produced set of 36 photos of key moments from the Pacific War, entitled "Greater East Asia War Photo Collection", and published by a commercial media company in conjunction with the Japanese navy. These begin with shots of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and continue with images of Japanese arial attacks on allied ships including the "Essex" and the "Prince of Wales" in the waters of the South Pacific.

The combat photos are followed by a set of sharply contrasting images of temples in the Toyokawa district of Japan and of street scenes in Osaka taken in 1944. These, quite oddly, are accompanied by a western religious postcard of a praying child, of the sort popular in the early to mid-20th century. We then see shots of the family on a 1943 outing to the Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture, including a group shot taken in front of the Great Buddha of Shurakuen, and photos of the scenic Ena Gorge in Gifu Prefecture and of the landscape of Kyoto. Three photos show a youngish woman - both in a portrait shot and on a 1942 visit to Hamaishi in Shizuoka, a mountain slope which offers beautiful views of Mt. Fuji. These are accompanied by a set of 16 attractively produced commercial photographs of the landscape around Mt. Fuji, and there are further shots of this landscape later in the album, evidently taken by a family member. Quite disconcertingly, between these attractive landscape scenes there are a set of commercial portrait photos of figures towards whom the maker of the album presumably felt particular respect. These include naval leader Togo Heihachiro (1848-1034), General Nogi Maresuke (1849-1912, the Russo-Japanese War military leader who committed ritual suicide at the time of the death of the Emperor Meiji), Benito Mussolini, Adolph Hitler and Admiral Shimada Shigetaro (1883-1976), who was sentenced to life imprisonment at the postwar war crimes trials. On the back pages of the album there are three images cut from newspapers of Japanese planes being waved off from Nagoya Airport on their way to "attack the enemy".

A curious illustration of the mixture of military passions and ordinary everyday life in the world of a Japanese family during wartime.

When referring to this item please quote stockid 219926.

Price: $650.00 AU

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