Record Group 80-G - the blog post 18 months in the making!

I had intended to do this a while ago, but found after my October 2012 trip that I had missed a few crucial photos and decided to wait until I had them. Well, I still missed one, but I'm not waiting another 12 to 18 months!

80-G is a sub-section of Record Group 80, "General Records of the Department of the Navy, 1798-1947." It is an all-photographic collection and is Officially titled "General Photographic File of the Department of Navy, 1943 - 1958." The dates are actually incorrect in that there is a bunch of photos that are pre-war. By most standpoints it is a mess - there is not an orderly progression of photos but rather a mish-mash turned over by different commands within the Navy. There are duplicates and subjects that repeat as different groups may have turned in the same photo or set from their internal records. Some times reproduction is poor as the copy is the 5th or 6th generation plus from the original. There are gaps where photos were stolen or damaged beyond use and discarded, and NARA has not the budget or time to replace these from the negatives that are stored separately.

That said, it is a treasure trove of photos - 2861 boxes of photos taking 600 linear feet of shelf space in the archives. That many photos makes for an unwieldy data set - one can't simply google the subject and have all of them shown to you. It starts, with a card catalog:

Looking for ships is relatively easy, although there's no guarantee you will find any photos of the ship you you are looking for. We'll stick with ships though, for this blog post, just to keep things simple. Once you find the card box containing your ship name or hull number, you can pull it out and start thumbing through the cards. If you're lucky, it will have a small copy of the photo along with the caption, but not always:

While this can be a little tedious, the whole experience is starting. The researcher has to make a note of every photo number of interest, then take that list to a finding aid that will help match the photo number to the box. A savy researcher will either have a list of photo numbers and boxes, or will turn in a request for one or two boxes just to have something for the first pull, as it may take a couple of hours for your boxes to make it out to you on a cart. After the first pull slip has been filled out and turned in, you can continue matching up numbers and boxes, and build up a list for the rest of your trip, or future ones while waiting.

Compared to the textual records and other photographic records, filling out a pull slip for 80-G is pretty easy. One just needs to know their name, researcher number, date, the fact that they're pulling from 80-G, and the bos number. If multiple boxes are desired, you can enter a range, but it has to be contiguous. SO, you could pull boxes 100-110 with one pull slip, but if you wanted 100-110 plus box 120, you would need to do two pull requests. As you are limited to two carts in total, and only one out at a time, it's wise to be a little paper-heavy instead of just pulling large swaths. Unless, your goal is just to go through the whole series a box at a time!

But then, the boxes start arriving!

Inside, are folders with the photos mounted on thicker cardboard cards - this helps protect them and also provide space outside of the print for caption data - date, location, subject, etc..

Hard drive space is cheaper than time at the archives, so I usually set my scanner to save the entire platen, and scan as much of the photo and card as I can. When the photo is full-sized, I usually lose the left inch or so of the caption, but I at least have the date and some of the pertinent information on the card in case I miss anything when note-taking as I scan.

One downside to the cardboard backing is that the edges get beat up over time and start to shed fibers - this shows up as dust on the platen that can show up in the image, so it wise to either wipe the plate clear every couple of scans with the white cotton gloves that are required wearing when handling photos, or with a microfiber cloth / cleaning cloth of your own.

So, that's a little bit of what 80-G is like. Textual records at NARA II or the regional archives are completely different, and takes more thought and planning, so many researchers confine their searches to just 80-G or other photo-only record group accessions. It certainly can be a lot of fun!

Random Photos - Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Charleston Gate, 1943

These were recent scans from Seattle NARA - the Charleston Access Gate at PSNS in 1943. The gate is currently here, but I don't know if this is the same location as it was in 1943, or if it was moved in or out.

The below photo was captioned "Machine gun nest protecting Charleston Gate," on the back, and there's really not enough information to locate the exact position at this point. It does not look like terribly exciting duty, but I would imagine there were a lot of sailors and Marines who enjoyed the shore duty stateside over being sent forward in the Pacific for a year or two, if not longer.

These were out of a group of records on "Passive Defense" for the shipyard, which were the same source as the Passive Defense Handbook, posted earlier.

I guess I've had some success

Came across this Wikipedia entry tonight for the first time and had a chuckle when checking out the references - 17 of 23 point back to camouflage documents I've posted. As far as wikipedia entries goes, it's not bad. I sorta object to the color swatches they added, but I understand why they did.

PT Boat Videos

While chasing down some leads I came across some videos of PT boat Operations on the NARA website and thought I'd edit them down a bit (there was non-PT footage in some). Below are some clips of base and on-board operations that might be useful to modelers.

BB-37 Oklahoma Torpedo Defense System, Pt II

Some more work done to visualize the effects that nine torpedo hits had on battleship Oklahoma's hull. This is the second sheet colorized, using a slightly different color palette for clarity. Green is air-filled voids, red is oil filled, and blue (only two) is water. These voids were designed to absorb most of the force of a torpedo explosion, but would lose most of their effectiveness after the first hit.

The below side-view shows the added torpedo blister and the armor belt. Note that this is from the Booklet of General Plans and is reversed to show her port side, which explains why the text is backwards. As you can see, the first two hits were below the armored belt. A similar hit on Nevada punched through the dry blister voids and ripped in to the two fuel-oil filled voids inboard of that with enough force that the main bulkhead protecting the innards was then dished in roughly two feet and the compartments began to flood.

As you can see, the hits were fairly bunched up, and the armor belt took a beating. The plates where hits three, five, and seven occurred did not come back up with the ship, although whether they were blown free or pulled free when she was rolled upright is not known.

USS Oklahoma Torpedo Defense System, Pt I

I've been working on understanding the death of Oklahoma better so I can explain it to others, and I thought a good visualization of her Torpedo Defense System might help. This is the lower three levels of the ship, below the armor belt. Red is oil (fuel oil, diesel, etc.), blue is water (feed water mostly) and the medium blue are empty voids (air).

This is downsized from the original - not meant to be the final posting, just showing the start of a new project.

More fun than counting individual oil bunkers, anyway....

Even the Anchor Chains!

Came across these in OPA while doing some digging; SS Matilda Weems in 1918 in a freshly applied dazzle scheme. Note that on the starboard side, even the anchor chains follow the pattern!

Source: 
NARA Atlanta, RG 181 "Department of the Navy. Sixth Naval District. Office of the Aide for Information. (ca. 1916 - ca. 1920)
http://research.archives.gov/description/2681794