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a brown box with writing on it on a white surfacean old photo of two men in military uniforms, one in uniform and the other in uniforman old photo of a man in a military uniforman old book with pictures of people in itan old black and white photo of a group of people posing for a picturean old photo of a group of people sitting in a living rooman old black and white photo of a man in a military uniforman old photo of a group of people standing in front of a buildingan open notebook with a list of things on it sitting on a tablean old book with a picture of a baseball stadium on itan old photo of a book with pictures of people on itan open book with a picture of a town in itan old photo of a book with pictures on itan old black and white photo of a group of people in front of a trainan open book with pictures of a building in itan old photo of a book with pictures of people on itan open book with pictures of a cemetery and a cemeteryan old photo of a book with pictures of people and buildingsan old book with pictures of the ocean and landan old photo of a book with pictures of airplanes on ita book with pictures of airplanes flying in the skya book with pictures of airplanes flying over the wateran old photo of a group of men standing in front of an airplaneblack and white photo of two men standing in front of an airplanean old photo of a book with pictures of people on itan open book with pictures of a lighthouse on ita picture of a man sitting in the cockpit of a planean old photo of a plane in the middle of a booka book with pictures of a plane and a picture of a planean old photo of a book with pictures of people on itan old book with pictures of a man and a plane on itseveral black and white photos of a plane and a man on a planean old black and white photo of a group of people in front of an airplaneseveral black and white photos of a group of people standing in front of an airplaneseveral black and white photos of a plane on display in a bookan old photo of a book with a bunch of pictures on itfour old photos of a plane on a page in a bookfour photos of a plane that are on the pages of a bookan old photo of a book with pictures of a plane on itan open book with a bunch of comics on itPhoto 41/50 du lotPhoto 42/50 du lotPhoto 43/50 du lotPhoto 44/50 du lotPhoto 45/50 du lotPhoto 46/50 du lotseveral old photos of people are spread out on an open bookfour dog tags are shown on a table with a white backgrounda book with a drawing of a man wearing a helmeta black and white photo of a book with a picture of a boat
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Photograph album of Sergeant Ray L.
See original version (French)

Estimate €500 - €700
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Description
Photograph album of Sergeant Ray L. Yandell, 504th Bomb Group – 20th Air Force – Pacific – Mariana Islands, Tinian (118 original photographs) The photographs in this album have been extensively captioned by its former owner and constitute a first-rate historical record. This modern-style album was compiled by Yandell, presumably in the 1980s or 1990s, using original photographs all dating from the 1940s. Yandell was a gunner on a B-29 as part of Captain Charles Houser’s crew. The first pages of Sgt Yandell’s album are devoted to his family and his training period in Nebraska between April and October 1944, followed by Colorado Springs from October to December 1944, after he was injured in a plane crash beforebeing reassigned to a combat unit within the 680th Bomb Squadron of the 504th Bomb Group at the famous Alamogordo airbase in New Mexico. An entire page of the album is devoted to this final training period before the 504th BG’s deployment to the island of Guam in the Mariana Islands. It reveals that this squadron was equipped with 10 B-29 Superfortresses and 25 crews, and that during February 1945 the unit’s barracks were converted to house German prisoners of war. In March 1945, Yandell and the men of his unit were transferred to the Mariana Islands by ship from Seattle; their aircraft were flown there with reduced crews. Their initial operations involved dropping naval mines to enforce the blockade of Japan, particularly in the Shimonoseki Strait. The first photograph taken in the combat zone shows the northern airfield on the island of Tinian, which was home to several other B-29 units. On their arrival at Tinian, the men of the 504th BG disembarked from their troop transport ship, the US Zulla Lites, after 26 days at sea to set up their camps. Their first operations involved dropping mines into the sea all around Japan to establish a naval blockade. The ‘Sacred Order of the Golden Dragon’ certificate is an unofficial award presented to crew members of ships that cross the International Date Line. The photographs then show the facilities and camps where Yandell and his comrades were billeted. The caption to these photographs states that on 16 October 1945 a hurricane completely swept away all these tents. Yandell also notes that the Japanese, who had occupied the Mariana Islands before being driven out by American forces from June 1944 onwards, left behind a large number of Korean labourers on the Mariana Islands, presumably their former prisoners. The album continues with photographs of the 504th BG’s briefing room and various sites on the island, including the makeshift dwellings of the Korean labourers and a team of Korean fishermen tasked with supplying the American units with fresh fish. Several photos then show the vast areas housing the B-29 units before getting to the heart of the matter with the B-29s themselves on their parking aprons, taxiing along the runways before take-off, and the aircraft in flight. Yandell noted that the 504th BG’s identification marking consists of an ‘E’ in a circle on the aircraft’s vertical stabiliser. The in-flight photographs show formations of B-29s en route to their target; some were taken from the bombardier’s station, whilst others show the aircraft with their bomb bays open, ready to drop their payloads, amidst Japanese anti-aircraft fire, flying over huge plumes of smoke caused by previous waves of bombers, before their long return journey to their home base and the landing phase. A series of photographs shows the aircraft flown by Yandell’s crew, named ‘The Spirit of F. D. R. ’ (after Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States), severely damaged to the vertical stabiliser by Japanese anti-aircraft fire during a mission on 16 July 1945. Yandell was not part of the crew on that mission, and fortunately his replacement was not injured, unlike the crews of other B-29s that made emergency landings under far more dramatic circumstances. A series of photographs shows the island of Iwo Jima, situated much further north of the Mariana Islands, which also hosted B-29 units but served primarily as an emergency landing site for B-29s in distress whilst returning from missions, and as a repair area. Yandell noted in his album that this small island was the most costly piece of land in the entire campaign against Japan in terms of its area and the human cost: 20,000 American soldiers, of whom 5,500 were killed, compared with 23,000 Japanese. A colourised photograph shows Yandell emerging from the fuselage through a hatch in a B-29 (No. 56) near the aircraft’s tail fin, where his gunner’s station was located. Two photographs depict the first atomic bomb, featuring an aerial view of the devastated city of Hiroshima alongside a photograph of the B-29 ‘Enola Gay’ No. 82, seen from its right side, bearing the inscription ‘First Atomic Bomb Hiroshima – AUG. 6. 1945’; the aircraft’s nickname is on the other side. This photograph is relatively rare as this inscription was subsequently removed from the aircraft and reproduced in a smaller format alongside the list of crew members. An interesting series of photographs depicts missions to airdrop food, medicines and clothing to Allied prisoner-of-war camps in Japan. A series of around 30 photographs is devoted to the decorations that adorned the noses of the B-29s, the vast majority of which were pin-up girls, some with their crews posing at the foot of the aircraft. One in particular shows a man drawing and painting the insignia of the 680th Bomb Squadron. A series of six cartoon drawings depicts various crew members in their working environment on board a B-29. Various original documents relating to Yandell (his pay book and vaccination cards) accompany a rare series of propaganda leaflets that were dropped over Japan during missions. These types of documents were printed with a serial number and followed a specific structure in the messages intended for the civilian population. The album concludes with the return to the United States by ship and a portrait of Yandell in dress uniform, wearing the ribbons of his decorations, including the Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, signifying multiple awards. It also features several of his dog tags, two large-format photographs – one of which shows the B-29s parked on their aprons at Tinian – a typewritten history of the 504th BG, and a leaflet on the capture of the island of Tinian by American troops. An account of a mission by Captain Midlam, the intelligence officer (S-2) of the 504th BG, and the award of the Distinguished Unit Badge to members of the 504th BG for their particularly effective actions between 27 July and 14 August 1945, notably the mining of several major Japanese ports. The number of missions carried out by Yandell is not specified throughout the album, but given the unit’s period of deployment and the fact that Yandell arrived in Tinian in March 1945, it is reasonable to assume that, over the course of five months, he would have carried out around thirty missions. (Grégory Pons Collection) (full photo file available on request)
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About the sale Sale of the Grégory Pons collection and miscellaneous items (Aviation and WW2 Militaria)
Auction location
Auction time 11/14/2026 at 1:30 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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