Letters

THE PACIFIC WAR: Balikpapan, July 1, 1945 - another view of the L.C.V.P. Collection of Alan Meade, RAN 1943-1946

 

January 29, 2011

Hello Mac,

Sorry I am taking time to catch up with you and your place in RAN history.

Of course it remains in my plans, but I tend to fall behind my plans. But I haven't forgotten.

Mac, this is a nice message from Bob Meade,  who sent you photos from his dad, HMAS Shropshire Stoker Alan Meade's album several years back for help with IDs etc. Bob has eventually passed the collection to me on a disc, and I've been progressively uploading them onto the RAN Centenary Photostream over the past week. Of course you're featured, and I thought you'd like to see them.

They start on this page at present, and go on for about 6 pages, getting up towards 100 photos now.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/page6/ 

Well, that's it. Mac I've copied in a couple of other grand RAN Contributors, Graeme Andrews and Kim Dunstan on this forwarded message. Bit of a shortcut, and hope you don't mind, but I know they
are very interested in these Shropshire photos, and that you all have similar interests.

Bests to you for now, and I hope you and Denise are both well.

Regards
Jeff Penberthy


Jeff,

I must congratulate you and thank you for the depth of research which you have put into your commentary attached to dear Dad's photos. It makes them richer and in modern curatorial parlance contextualises them magnificently.

I'm very pleased that your audience are finding the photos worthwhile and enjoyable. I grew up looking at them, but perhaps only in the past 5 or 6 years came to realise their value - especially as I came to know that many are unique, or at least not represented in any other known collection.

You can imagine what Mac Gregory thought when he recognised himself in the shore party group photo. He had never seen the pic before.  Makes a moderately anonymous photo very personal.

THE PACIFIC WAR: HMAS Shropshire's Shore Patrol in Manila. Collection of Alan Meade, RAN 1943-1946.

Mac on the left.

The series of 3 pics of the USS California going through heavy seas, in the South China Sea are my current favourites.

THE PACIFIC WAR: USS California emerges from bows well under. Collection of Alan Meade, RAN 1943-1946.

I'm having some Internet connection problems on my desktop so I'll write more in a few days.

There are some facts about the Japanese delegation at Manila pic which are worth knowing. Tall US officer is a former POW I think MacArthur had a penchant for getting former POWs in on the Japanese surrenders. He handed the first pen he used to sign the instrument of surrender to General Wainwright - a poignant moment. I'll check and get back to you.

See you,
Bob

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/5382142520/ 


G'day Jeff,

What a scoop! All these Alan Meade photos are amazing - or rather pretty breathtaking.

Regarding the Australian's mopping-up. I don't know why this always comes out so much like a whinge. No doubt the echo of someglory seeking, bellyaching journos (sorry - nothing personal) at the time, but all those islands were in what you might call Australia's area of influence and, in war, certainly its responsibility and interest to secure and tidy-up.

Anyhow, a great addition to the photostream.

Cheers,
Kim


Jeff,

Thank you for sending me the Alan Meade photo collection, Denise and I are only back today from a 13 night cruise in  Dawn Princess ex Melbourne to NZ and back to Melbourne with some 2,000 passengers, an almost 80,000 ton ship, well found and an amazing staff to cater for every need.

It was nice to get back to sea even tho I am 89 in a few days time.

By a cc of your message I will ask my web master Terry Kearns in Atlanta Georgia to add these all to Ahoy, so a wider audience might enjoy them too.

Best regards,
Mac.

30/01/2011

Mac, 

Welcome back -- I saw that huge floating block of flats tied up at Station pier as I drove past today! I hope you and Denise enjoyed your trip -- I'm sure you did.

Mac, about the Bob Meade photo's. You will be a bit travel weary and may not wish to think about this for a few days ...however, as you may recall from when he first sent them to you, those photos are a little rough, quality wise. What I mean is that Bob propped up a camera on a tripod over his Dad's photo album, and just did the best he could.

As a result they are not high definition copies, and in the original many have the feet of the camera tripod in them, and the corner fixings from Alan Meade's photo album. I cropped and cleaned up quite a few before putting them on the RAN Centenary photostream.

Anyway, Mac, the point I wanted to let you know about is this: since I put these photos on the Photostream there is a bit of a movement here in Melbourne, led by Kim Dunstan [RAN 1958-1967] and some Naval history  group he belongs to, to see if the photos in the album could be more professionally copied. I guess they see these photos as rare and historic. Kim has offered to put up a little money to get it done, and I think they have an expert who might do it.

The question is -- would Bob [or Alan Meade, 85 and still hale and hearty]  be happy to let the album out of their possession to have this done? It's something I'll have to ring and ask Bob, and I've no idea how he will respond.

Anyway, I thought I would let you know this is happening, and you might want to think about it, and wait a few weeks to see what comes of this before passing on the images to  the Mac's Ahoy webmaster.

It may come to nothing Mac. It will certainly take a little time. I'll certainly let you know if there's a chance of better copies.

Bests, Jeff P.


Jeff,

Thanks for the update, I still think we will go ahead and put the photos in their current form up on AHOY.

Should better copies become available, we can then swap them for the later editions.

All the best in your endeavours, this collection, in my view, is too important to just leave languishing, hoping better copies may become available. if they do in the passage of time, we can
substitute the newer lot.

Keep on punching out there. Persistence does pay off in due course, in my experience.

Kindest regards,
Mac.

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