[VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM OF IMAGES BY A UNITED STATES ARMY SOLDIER STATIONED AT CAMP PARAISO NEAR THE PANAMA CANAL DURING THE EARLY YEARS OF WORLD WAR II, SHOWING THEIR TRAINING BASE, MILITARY VESSELS IN THE PANAMA CANAL, RELIEF EFFORTS FOR A LOCAL COMMUNITY, RECREATIONS DURING OFF HOURS, AND MORE]

[Camp Paraíso and vicinity, Panama, 1939-1940].. Six partially printed pages filled in manuscript, plus thirty album leaves with 120 mounted photos, most 4 x 5 inches. Oblong quarto. Contemporary limp brown suede photo album with illustration of the Panama Canal and the United States shield and eagle on the front cover. Some light soiling and wear to covers and album leaves. Images mostly clean and crisp with occasional slight mirroring or small stains. Very good. A personal photo album of mostly original images, compiled by a soldier serving in the United States 5th Infantry stationed at the Panama Canal at the outbreak of World War II. The Canal Zone would become vital to the American war effort and was one of the most important strategic locations in the hemisphere. In 1939, Camp Paraiso (which had been abandoned a few years earlier) was reinstated as a military base, and the 5th Infantry constructed barracks, a post office, a movie theater, and other structures that contributed to its becoming one of the primary settlements in the Canal Zone after the war.

The soldier who created this album was likely Irish-American John T. Curran, based on an ink stamp on the front cover. The soldier was a native of Maine who was stationed at Camp Paraiso from 1939 to 1940. He has captured a variety of images, including of troop transports and battleships as they travel through the Canal, the crews of those ships visiting the base, soldiers in and out of uniform in camp, at mess, drilling, constructing buildings, or relaxing, fighter planes in a nearby field, and even a Catholic mass in the ruins of the Convento de San José, built in 1612. A particularly interesting series of photos depicts U.S. Army soldiers on a relief mission, providing food and supplies to local men, women, and children in the almost entirely demolished remains of a city. Six pages at the front of the album, titled "Autographs of my Friends," are filled with the signatures and addresses of over forty other members of the troop. Each signature is accompanied by a comment, ranging from the heartfelt to the flat out insulting, perhaps most appropriately summed up by a Sergeant Smith, who writes "Till we meet again, not in Panama I hope." An interesting collection of photographs from a soldier in the American theatre during the outset of the Second World War.