Slightly OT but interesting

[Navy]

In my pursuit of Navy Lugers, I also pursue accoutrements and artifacts of the period to provide a context in which the pistols may be seen. Some of you may remember the exhibit Derek Seltzer and I did at KC two years ago, where in addition to the pistols, we had photographs of sailors, uniforms, boarding cutlasses, wehrpasses, etc all in attempt to put human faces behind these pistols.

In any event, I acquired yesterday a photograph album of an Imperial Navy sailor who served on the Deutschland and later on the U70. It is dated 1913-1917.

The photographs are absolutely amazing. It contains combat shots of Allied vessels being sunk, several with shots of the torpedoes in the water enroute to the target vessel. There are some facinating below decks shots of the torpedo room operations, the vessel commander (Cdr Wuntze) at the periscope and inspection of the boat for battle damage after an engagement. One particularly cool shot shows the U70 meeting with another Uboat on the high seas. Likewise portrayed are shots of captured crews being taken aboard as well as the standard "crew and comrade" pictures taken on liberty and at Christmas, etc.

I have never run across anything like this before and wonder if anyone on the forum has. I have seen loads of W.W.II uboat albums but never a W.W.I version before.

I will post some pix later.

Tom A. <img src="graemlins/offtopic.gif" border="0" alt="[offtopic]" />