World War II Illustrated Envelopes

August 4, 2004 9:55 AM

"Where are the ships?" and 59 other WWII-era illustrated envelopes are now available for viewing through the Veteran's History Project. Another smaller set of gorgeous illustrated envelopes from the same era is available here, all depicting scenes from the life of G.I.s stationed in the Pacific.
posted by .kobayashi. (6 comments total)

These are great, thanks Kobayashi.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 11:39 AM on August 4, 2004

Awesome, thanks.
posted by interrobang at 12:01 PM on August 4, 2004

Thanks kobayashi. This is one of the interesting posts that makes MeFi great. In college, I had a job ghost-writing for the biography of a WWII vet who was stationed in the Pacific. I wish I could find and scan some of the pencil sketches that he did in his downtime while there. Often they unintentionally revealed a very grim story.

(Strange this wonderful post has gone almost unnoticed today while posts from the Onion, a phony Thatcher RIP, not one but two posts about North Korean subs (one which was from Reuters and took up half the screen), and various mainstream BushFilter/NewsFilter posts have grabbed all the attention.)
posted by dhoyt at 12:26 PM on August 4, 2004

I love this. My dad was a Marine in Okinawa during WW II. Like most of those guys, he rarely talks about it, but he did tell me that the water was so thick with ships you could walk from one to the other without getting wet, and that on his entire stay there, he never saw a complete palm tree--the tops were always shattered from the fighting. I think of that when I see modern war movies with all their perfect Hollywood palms.
posted by GaelFC at 12:33 PM on August 4, 2004

This is great, Kobayashi. Makes you realize the power of the human spirit, that somebody could find that much levity in that bleak situation.
posted by arto at 7:59 PM on August 4, 2004

This is a beautiful post, .kobayashi - thanks. I actually had the link from the smaller collection set aside as a possible post someday - cool stuff.

iconomy had a prior post on illustrated letters and envelopes by Grateful Dead fans - vastly different subject matter, but also cool.

oh, and what arto said.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:17 PM on August 4, 2004