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Nice photos.

I've got original wartime prints of your #'s 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, and 17. My copies came from a US Army Air Corps pilot who served in the 57th Fighter Group in North Africa. These photos came from a photo shop in Cairo, Egypt.

According to my vet friend, allied forces on leave in Cairo frequented this photo shop to get their personal film deveolped. Apparently the shop had a habit of "loosing" (i.e. keeping for themselves) the original negatives for any really interesting photos that came in. The shop would then make duplicates for sale as souvenirs to the troops. My friend stated that the walls of the shop were literally covered with these photos, any of which were available for purchase.

Thus, the photos in my vet friend's album are a somewhat jumbled mix of his own personal photos and the "souvenir" photos originating from the photo shop in Cairo.

BTW: I seem to recall a while back you posting some photos of US infantry in Europe, playing around with captured German guns, equipment, etc. I think this was in a thread pertaining to GI's posing with captured German items.

Several of the photos looked familiar to me and, in fact, I think I recognized one of the persons depicted as being the veteran whose estate I acquired several years ago. The veteran was in the US 30th "Old Hickory" Infantry Division. Do you recall if some of your photos are also from this division?

I'll try to locate the thread and ID the specific photo(s).

**W Petz** · 03-15-2006, 10:40 PM

Alan,

Thanks for the background information on the referenced photos. Same old story though....many photos out there that were printed off the negatives for buddies or GI's (same thing on the German side). The good thing is they are war time prints even though they apparently were massed produced as souvenir photos.
I answered you question on my other thread "war booty". Regards - Bill

Originally posted by Alan Smith

Nice photos.

I've got original wartime prints of your #'s 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, and 17. My copies came from a US Army Air Corps pilot who served in the 57th Fighter Group in North Africa. These photos came from a photo shop in Cairo, Egypt.

According to my vet friend, allied forces on leave in Cairo frequented this photo shop to get their personal film deveolped. Apparently the shop had a habit of "loosing" (i.e. keeping for themselves) the original negatives for any really interesting photos that came in. The shop would then make duplicates for sale as souvenirs to the troops. My friend stated that the walls of the shop were literally covered with these photos, any of which were available for purchase.

Thus, the photos in my vet friend's album are a somewhat jumbled mix of his own personal photos and the "souvenir" photos originating from the photo shop in Cairo.

BTW: I seem to recall a while back you posting some photos of US infantry in Europe, playing around with captured German guns, equipment, etc. I think this was in a thread pertaining to GI's posing with captured German items.

Several of the photos looked familiar to me and, in fact, I think I recognized one of the persons depicted as being the veteran whose estate I acquired several years ago. The veteran was in the US 30th "Old Hickory" Infantry Division. Do you recall if some of your photos are also from this division?

I'll try to locate the thread and ID the specific photo(s).

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