I agree with Jim on the digging for photos. This is typically why you see the same photos over and over again in publications. Typically the National Archives has a list of photos they pull when someone asks for photos of a jeep or whatever.
Remember that your vehicle can show up in action shots, shots around bases, certain activities, what have you.
I will give you an good example.
While I was at the National Archives searching for some other photos I came across a photo of new M601's Power Wagons lined up outside of a shop in South America. They were sitting on telephone pole stumps to keep the tires off the ground.
The title on the photo was Military Aid to Boliva I believe and was part of a series on training and equipment sent there.
The point is that you never know what you are going to find until you dig. Also not every photo is in the contact boxes, sometimes all they have is a negative on file and you have to take a leap of faith and order a copy and hope it has what you are looking for.
One good thing about looking through all those boxes is you really start to get a feel for what it was like back then and can pick up on photo trends. When I was going through the Signal Corps photos from Vietnam seems every other photo was of captured arms caches. After awhile you got the feeling that the Army was judging its success by how much material it captured.
Rick
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: jim gilmore <jgilmore@ptd.net>
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 22:52:16 -0500
>
>Don wrote,
>
> ............I contacted a Mr. Lester who is supposedly a
>experienced researcher at NARA, College Park, MD.
>He says that the US Army "took pictures of everything they bought"
>with respect to vehicles. True?
>A specific Willys or Ford jeep wouldn't be there, of course, but what
>about my weird panel?
>What do you say Mr. Gilmore, Doyle, Stephens, Vaughn, Lathrop?
>...................
>
>
> Well.......I don't know it they took a photo of EVERYTHING...........but
>there are photos of most everything. You must know where to look though.......
>
> You can't just go there and look in one file and find every photo......
>
> I have been through over 34,000 photos just in the Army contact print
>boxes alone. And this was just from 1940 to mid 1943!! This does not
>include the USMC, Navy, Coast Guard or civilian photos that I have looked
>through.
>
> I don't have time right now to give a crash course in Archive digging.
>Maybe if I have time this weekend I'll post a overview of how to go about it.
>
> REMEMBER.........you are the only one who really cares about getting a
>photo of your vehicle. The people who work at the National Archives are
>very helpful but....they just don't have the time to go through the
>thousands of photos to find what you might need. You have to take at least
>a week and go digging for 12 hours a day to really find the "gold".
>
> First thing to do is to go to the Henry Ford Archives in Dearborn
>MI. Start where your vehicle started from. You are more likely to find
>photos there than the Nat. Archives but you must go and dig yourself.
>
> A good tip.........don't think of what your vehicle is......but what it
>also is! It is a panel truck but it may be found under such obscure photo
>titles as "lockers", machine shop, service truck, maintenance truck,
>airfields, shipyards, and even surplus. These are all photo titles. I found
>some great photos of GP's in a file labeled "visitors" and others in "radio
>installations".
>
> Jim
>
>
> NOTE NEW ADDRESS----NOTE NEW ADDRESS---NOTE NEW ADDRESS------AS OF
>JANUARY 4, 2001---------
>
>
>Jim Gilmore
>13 Broadway 3rd floor
>Jim Thorpe, PA. 18229
>
>570-325-5216 phone
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 06 2002 - 11:49:25 PST