This series consists of photographs documenting the activities of the U.S. Air Force and its predecessors during World War II and the Korean War, as well as U.S. military aviation history. The records are grouped into six broad subject categories: World War II; Pre-1940 Domestic; Pre-1954 Domestic; Non-Domestic; Korean War; and Addenda.
The World War II category consists of approximately 50,000 images grouped by numbered regional "war theater" and thereunder alphabetically by location or topic. Subjects covered include aircraft; crews and units; fields and installations; aircraft maintenance; transportation; reconnaissance; bombing and strafing; prisons and prisoners; captured materiel; medical care; and combat action. Boxes 203 through 205, the last boxes in this section include color images.
The pre-1940 domestic section includes images of subjects dating from as early as 1903. There are, however, a few images of earlier subjects, such as Dr. Thaddeus Lowe's Civil War-era balloon. The images in this group are arranged alphabetically by broad subject categories and thereunder alphabetically by more specific subjects. Photographs in the pre-1940 section show foreign and domestic aircraft, balloons and airships (by name of manufacturer); wrecks (by field); bombing tests (by location); flights; air races; training; maneuvers (by year); equipment; fields and installations (mostly aerial views); and personnel (alphabetical by surname). There are also images of lighter-than-air craft.
The pre-1954 domestic category consists of the largest number of images. Its time span overlaps the pre-1940 group, although the majority of the images are post-1940. Included among the early images are several hundred photographs documenting activities of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France during World War I. The subject categories in the pre-1954 domestic section group are similar to those used in the pre-1940 section and are arranged in a similar manner. Subjects covered include U.S. aircraft (by U.S. Air Force designation); foreign aircraft (by country); air shows; equipment and uniforms; events; air-to-air refueling; fire fighting; weapons; testing equipments and armaments, including nuclear weapons; operations (by name); organizations, such as, the Air National Guard and Women Airforce Service Pilots; military schools; aerial views of bases and installations (by name); and personnel (by name). The majority of images were recorded in the United States and its territories.
Approximately 2,000 images are filed under the Pre-1954 Non-Domestic category. The photographs in this section relate to post-World War II activities overseas. The images are arranged alphabetically by country and thereunder by topic. Of interest are pictures relating to the Berlin Airlift (Operation "Vittles") and the occupation of Japan.
Photographs in the Korean War section document U.S. Air Force, United Nations, and North Korean combat actions and cease-fire negotiations. The majority of the photographs were taken in Korea, but many others originated in Japan. A few Korean War related images are also included in the Pre-1954 Non-Domestic section under Japan. The subjects recorded in this section are similar to the World War II coverage. They are arranged alphabetically. Included are photographs of aircraft; bombing (by location); crews (by type, example: bombardier); fields and installations (by subject); operations; prisoner exchanges, including "Big Switch" and "Little Switch"; troops; recreation; and conferences.
The Addenda section contains a variety of imagery similar to the above described subjects. The images in Addenda were not located in the files or were not properly identified when the bulk of the videodiscs were under production, and thus were added to the end. Included are photographs taken during World War II of action in the European and Pacific Theaters of Operation. Of note are several Intelligence Division photographs showing the results of aerial bombings in Europe. The remainder of the photographs are pre-1954 domestic and non-domestic images of military personnel, types of aircraft and missiles, equipment, events, aerials of air fields and U.S. Army camps, and airscapes of U.S. cities.
According to a finding aid developed by the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in the mid-1990s, assembly of the materials in this collection began in the early 1920s at a succession of Air Force headquarters organizations, including the Air Corps and its predecessors, General Headquarters Air Force (GHQAF), U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF), and U.S. Air Force (USAF). This history suggests that the Air Corps and GHQAF probably collected materials simultaneously, and ultimately those materials merged into the custody of the newly created USAAF, and later the USAF, where the collections were unified to become the present series.
