US 9th Army Air Force

Sadly I’ve made no further progress in identifying the mystery 9th USAAF Captain but, in the course of pursuing this quest, I came across some fascinating collections of photographs on the US Air Force Historical Research Agency website. I’m sure that most of you are already well aware of these and, as usual, I’m the ‘johnny come lately’! But in case there are one or two even less well informed than me, you may care to go to http://www.afhra.af.mil/photos/index.asp and while away a few hours there.

Thanks to many kind people, on many disparate fora, I now know how to post images on a forum using a photo hosting site. Thank you to all of you. Thus if you go to the WiX and ArmyAirForces fora, you’ll find my posts and copies of the photo. But sadly I’m no further forward in identifying the officer in the photo and this saddens me greatly. I made various promises to my late father-in-law – who, whilst he had no aviation connections, was a Major in the Royal Tank Regiment and served with distinction in North Africa and Italy – and I’d really like to crack this one. Can anyone help?

I’ve loaded your pic on my Photobucket page.

Click on the “quote” button on my post, and copy the entire image string… including the brackets & IMG statements (but not the quote statement).

Then paste that into a post on Wix, and it should work fine.

Thanks Paul. To me, using photo hosting sites to post images seems to be a bit like the black arts – and I haven’t progressed beyond being the sorcerer’s apprentice! I’ve managed to post a hyperlink to the image but I’m damned if I can work out how to get the image itself to appear. Can some fully qualified sorcerer please enlighten me!

They recommend using Photobucket.com and then copying over from there. Here’s the explanation.

Well I’ve looked and looked again for the sticky in question but I’ve found nothing. Can someone put this poor soul out of his misery by posting a hyperlink to the sticky?

Well that doesn’t bode well for me then! However I’ll look at the sticky and see if I can work out how to upload the image from my PC.

There is a sticky on WIX that tells you how to do it but it’s a bit complicated, to me anyway!

I would suggest that the WiX Hangar is the best WiX forum for this. Also try the Army Air Forces Forum. All Hands Club and Canteen section is recommended for this type of query!

I’ve now posted on both of these fora but I have not posted a copy of the picture on the WiX forum – because I don’t know how to do so and, despite my plea for help, no-one there has come forward with that. It may be that, on the WiX forum, I cannot upload images from my PC but have to do so via a photo hosting or other web site. Can anyone here put me straight and tell me how to post an image on the WiX forum?

I also would like updates on your research.

Your wish is my command!

would like to know the outcome.

Roger Smith.

Many thanks for all the suggestions. Since 1969 Industrial Photographic of 35 Moreton Street, London SW1 seem to have disappeared off the radar. There is no reference to them on the web and the premises are now occupied by a bathroom fittings company! However I have contacted the National Portrait Gallery in the hope that it might be able to tell me whether the Vandyk negative collection is extant and, if so, where it is now located as through that and with the negative number, it might be possible to identify the sitter. I have also contacted the PR office of the 9th US Air Force in the hope that they might be able to help me in my quest. In the meantime I’ll take a look at the various US fora suggested and see if these might offer the potential for further information. Unless I’m boring you all, I’ll let you know what emerges.

This might be the photographer’s work, and this might help your research.

But you’ve already seen these sites, right?

Vandyk was succeeded by his son, Herbert Vandyk (circa 1880-1943) (National Portrait Gallery 2004). In 1964 the company became ‘Bassano and Vandyck Studio’. In 1965 it incorporated ‘Elliott and Fry’. In 1977 it became ‘Industrial Photographic’ (Pritchard 1994, p.34).

Have you researched for archives under those names?

This might be the photographer’s work, and this might help your research.

But you’ve already seen these sites, right?

I would suggest that the WiX Hangar is the best WiX forum for this. Also try the Army Air Forces Forum. All Hands Club and Canteen section is recommended for this type of query!

Yes, Roger, it does – but my initial researches on the web produced no leads to Vandyk Ltd or its successor (if any). However as soon as I have a little more time I’ll pursue this idea further – as well as registering for WiX and trying to work out on which of its fora it might be appropriate to post this enquiry!

Does the photo have a pencilled ref no on the back? Many portrait studios did this should the customer return for more copies.

If it has, some family history society may lead to access to Vandyks files – if they still exist. A bit of a long-shot.

Roger Smith.

If you have no luck here you could try the WIX (Warbird Information Exchange) board, it’s US based and they have a huge knowledge base on there. Worth a try…

http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/index.php?sid=996847c8b9500a0ffbecb2487744d8ff

Just a thought but maybe one of the US forum members can help me here?