Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two

Posts Tagged ‘Navy

Blue Angels Group Photos …

with 5 comments

1959-blue-angels-2-_-7x5-_-25-feb-17-_sfw

The date on the back of the photo is 6-29-59.  Not sure that this is the date that my father made this photo or just a random date assigned by the Navy.  I only have prints of these images.  The Navy purchased the negatives and they in turn made press releases and publicity photos for autographs.  That is the reason for no lettering on the prints or that is what my father told me.  Back then the Blue Angels did not have a staff photographer or publicity officer for the team.  In fact, from what I have learned, those two jobs were not added until many years later.  It would be interesting if anyone seeing this post might be able to enlightened us with any details on any of this.   Below is one other group photo of the Blue Angels that my father took at this same time …

 

blue-angel-group-1959-_-rtp_7x5_sfw

The third man kneeling from the left is Lt.  Robert ” Bob ” Rasmussen who is a Pensacola resident and it is his jet in the background.  I guess that this group includes the two alternate pilots that fly with the group, but that is just a guess by me.  If I am wrong I apologize in advance and like I mentioned before, if anyone has any stories to share about this group from 1959, please feel free to comment.  I probably should have done some ” googling ” on the 1959 Blue Angels before I created this post, but as usual I did not.  Like I have said before, I am just a photographer and not a historian and I leave the important information gathering to others.  Thanks again for looking and please check back.

PS – I will most likely be adding to this post when I do some ” googling ” … Thanks – Frank

PPS – OK, I went to the official Blue Angel’s web site and their official photo is not one of these images.  The image that they show is one of the pilots wearing their leather flight jackets and not just in their flight suites as the photos here that my father took.  Maybe these were just too informal or something along that line.  But for whatever reason, these were not used.  I did google around and neither of these images popped up on the internet anywhere, which to me is something of a surprise.  At least I feel that I am adding something relevant that people have not seen before when I post to this blog.  Again, please feel free to comment and share any of your Blue Angel stories …

Bronson Field …

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Bronson Field 7 _ RTP _ 11 Sept 15 _ SFW

These are some negatives that I purchased on Ebay of local air base Bronson Field.  I am not exactly sure where Bronson Field was located, but I want to say it was located somewhere near Perdido Bay.  I might be completely wrong there and the people that I purchased them from were not exactly sure either.  I cropped this negative to show just the flight line and the plane that is taking off below …

 

Bronson Field 7 _ RTP _ 11 Sept 15 _Cropped _ SFW

 

There is one other negative that I received and it shows the control tower along with the planes …

 

Bronson Fileld Negative Scan_RTP_11 Sept 15 _ SFW

And like the one above, I cropped out everything and just showed the flight line …

 

Bronson Fileld Negative Scan_RTP_11 Sept 15_Cropped  _SFW

The photos are nothing really special and you can tell that they were taken by an amateur, but the old cars and planes are interesting.  If anyone runs across anymore images like these on Ebay or anywhere else, please let me know.  I used to look on Ebay, but you can end up wasting a lot of time with just the shear volume that is on the site.  Most of it, to me, is a lot of junk / mess that people think are really valuable and exciting and I am not good at filtering it out.  Also, if you run across something at a flea market locally let me know.  Thanks again and if anyone knows something about Bronson Field, let us know … Frank

 

 

Written by Frank Hardy

September 15, 2015 at 11:37 am

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