Records of U.S. Air Force Commands, Activities, and Organizations. 1900 - 2003. Personality Index to Black and White and Color Negatives, Slides, and Transparencies of U.S. Air Force Activities, Facilities, and Personnel

ArchivalResource

Records of U.S. Air Force Commands, Activities, and Organizations. 1900 - 2003. Personality Index to Black and White and Color Negatives, Slides, and Transparencies of U.S. Air Force Activities, Facilities, and Personnel

Records of U.S. Air Force Commands, Activities, and Organizations. 1900 - 2003. Personality Index to Black and White and Color Negatives, Slides, and Transparencies of U.S. Air Force Activities, Facilities, and Personnel

1941-1980

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542378

This series functions as a joint personality index for Record Group 342, Series AF ("Black and White Photographs of U.S. Air Force Activities, Facilities, and Personnel, Domestic and Foreign"); Series C ("Color Photographs of U.S. Air Force Activities, Facilities, and Personnel, Domestic and Foreign"); as well as providing access to a portion of P ("Photographs of U.S. Air Force and Noted Civilian Personalities"). The Personality Index is in two parts comprising some 60,000 index cards (3" X 5"), proceeding alphabetically through an estimated 40,0000 names (including multiple cards for the more heavily-photographed figures). There is near-comprehensive coverage of the formal portrait views, head-and-shoulders, or figure-seated-at-desk -- found frequently in Record Group 342, Series C and in Record Group 342, Series AF, and near-comprehensive coverage of the formal portrait views found in the "Generals" segment of Record Group 342, Series P (Boxes 123-189, spanning some 4,300 negatives). The larger portion of Record Group 342, Series P (Photographs of U.S. Air Force and Noted Civilian Personalities) is devoted to formal portraits of colonel-rank officers. These portraits are rarely represented in the Personalities Index, and can be identified only by consulting the Record Group 342, Series P "Colonels" segment itself. As for references to other kinds of images of individuals in Record Group 342, Series AF and Series C (appearing in group portraits, or appearing in views of meetings, tours, reviews, award ceremonies, and assorted special and routine operations), the Personality Index coverage is substantial but by no means comprehensive. Not every individual identified in every Air Force picture caption is represented in the Personality Index. High-ranking or particularly notable figures tend to be those indexed, although there are certainly many lesser known military personnel and civilians included as well. Altogether, the Personality Index includes listings for Secretaries of the Air Force, Chiefs of Staff, and other headquarters officials; area and functional command heads, wing and divisional commanders, and many other Air Force generals; war honorees, aces, test pilots, astronauts, and other aviation figures; leading Army, Navy, and Marine officials; U.S. Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Cabinet members, and Congressional and diplomatic figures; entertainers and other non-government celebrities; foreign political and military luminaries; and, as suggested above, a variety of lower-level U.S. Air Force personnel appearing in photographs of activities as diverse as aircraft maintenance, flight instruction, and religious prayer. Specific names in Part I (1954-1980) range from Air Force General Nathan Twining to Captain Alan D. Milacek (winner of an Air Force "Mackay Trophy" in 1970), from General Charles "Chuck" Yeager to Sergeant John Harrell (shown in a routine view of a maintenance shop at Phan Rang Air Base in South Vietnam), from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to Senator Strom Thurmond, from Ambassador Frederick Nolting to King Hussein, from Bob Hope to Cardinal Richard J. Cushing. Part II provides primarily citations to World War II and Korean War-era personalities. There is some overlapping of information. Some Korean War individuals and notables in early aviation history are also represented in Part I. Part II includes citations to such individuals as President Dwight D. Eisenhower; then Representative Gerald R. Ford visiting repatriated prisoners of war in Korea; and Secretary of State Dean Acheson signing an agreement to establish a long range proving ground for guided missiles in the Bahamas. Included too is a citation to Ambassador Averill Harriman in Russia awaiting the arrival of U.S. Strategic Air Force bombers to a Russian base. Too ranking Air Force personnel such as General Henry H. Arnold, Major General Harry G. Armstrong, Major General Curtis E. LeMay; Major General Claire L. Chennault, Lieutenant General George E. Stratemeyer, and Colonel George W. Goddard are cited multiple times. In many instances numerous notable episodes from their military careers are referenced. Photographs of Lieutenant Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. of Tuskegee Airmen fame is included in part II. Of interest is a citation to one image in particular of Davis rceiving the Distinguished Flying Cross from his father US Amy General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. There are many citations to images of comedian Bob Hope with United Service Organizations (USO) troupes entertaing airmen on the frontlines in World War II and Korea. Other well known actors entertaining service personnel are also cited. Examples of references to less notable individuals include Betty Baker, a World war II American Red Cross staffer on rest and relaxation in Italy; 2nd Lt. Alberta L. Bleau, a nurse in the Army Nurse Corps meeting her brother Staff Sergeant John G. Bleau in the European Theater of Operations; and Captain Julean Marcinkowski interrogating desserter Ho Uk Chin of the Second Division, North Korean Forces, November 1950. For a more detailed introduction to the notable personalities, see the description for Record Group 342, Series B ("Black and White and Color Photographs of U.S. Air Force Activities, Facilities, and Personnel, Foreign and Domestic"). All Personality Index cards bear names and corresponding black and white or color item numbers (or, in the case of Record Group 342, Series P negatives, a reference to "General's Book"), specific portrait dates, plus, at times, "A," "B," or "C" designations (these suffixes represent multiple views of a given individual in Record Group, Series P).The majority of the images referenced in Part II are black and white. Beyond these basic references, cards vary considerably in terms of depth of information and mode of presentation. This variance is due in part to heightened workloads and limited staff resources in the picture depository over the years; in part to the absence of a fully-developed Air Force picture cataloging/indexing manual; and in part to late-1960's changes designed to bring the still picture cataloging approach in line with the motion picture cataloging approach used at Norton Air Force Base. (See the Record Group 342, Series B description for a full explanation of the "Norton" system). While the majority of cards are devoted to single images, there are also numerous cards containing multiple-item listings. The majority of cards include systematic caption information (place, date that the image was taken, date that the image arrived at the central depository, organizational source, full content description, photographic process and format, and, increasingly after the mid-1960's, photographer). There are also many cards with only very cursory caption references. There are even widely-scattered cards bearing small contact prints of the respective personalities. Finally, the majority of cards contain some form of cross referencing to prints in Record Group 342, Series FH ("Black and White and Color Photographs of U.S. Air Force and Predecessor Agencies Activities, Facilities, and Personnel - World War II and Korean War") and in Record Group 342, Series B. Subject references appear as either a string of terms appearing on the top or bottom of the card (e.g., "Filed- Vietnam -- Maintenance -- Miscellaneous"), as is the case with the majority of the cards, or a numeric code entry appearing at the top (e.g., 040500, indicating the 04 Events/Activities category, notebook 50). At the same time, the cross-references do not always lead the researcher directly to the corresponding print. In some cases, the terms cited on the card have not been updated to match the Norton-system notebook headings introduced in the late-1960's. And, again in some cases, the numeric code entry does not take into account a non-Norton, geographic ("ND" group) notebook location. Hence, such print cross-references become clues, at best, rather than authoritative connecters.

67 linear feet

eng, Latn

National Archives at College Park