Photo Section Complex

Photo Section Complex

Military life

"The 17th Tact. Recon Sqdn Photo Section Complex Away from the living qtrs" From "Darkroom Soldier": "17th Squadron Photo Lab, Dobodura. Built at the edge of the jungle, Hill describes this facility as 'a very fine photo lab....' Under a roof of tarps and tents, they set up a separate film processing room, two print rooms, and a large finishing room. To wash their film and prints, they filled three bomb bay tanks on a scaffold from their well, then used gravity-fed water to complete the process. In a typical day, 'the photo lab went to work when the planes (B-25s) came back from their missions, usually around 4:00pm. We developed film, annotated each negative with all the pertinent data, made the prints, washed, dried, and sorted them, delivered them to the next higher echelon, then ate breakfast and went to bed -- only to be up and ready to do it all again by 4:00pm the next afternoon." ("Darkroom Soldier" caption authored by George Venn) Written on negative, but not appearing in photo: "1st Lt. Forrest E. Tregea, M/Sgt Ramon J Walsch, Lab Chief - Fred Hill Sgt."

Hill, Fred

1944

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2010.1.158