Posts Tagged ‘Pensacola NAS’
Blue Angels Group Photos …
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 …
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 …
The Launch of the USS Pensacola …
This is almost a first me … I have actually done some research on the images that I am going to post today and I am going to include a link to more photographs for those of you might be interested in seeing more images. Two of the photographs are one’s that I have copied for a lady in the past and the other three are from the US Navy site that I am going to give you a link to at the end of the post. The first image is one from the Navy site that sort of starts the story of the USS Pensacola launch at the Brooklyn Naval Yard on 25 April 1926 …
You see all of dignitaries from the Navy and I know that there are several in this crowd from Pensacola … Harvey Bayless is one who was the City of Pensacola’s City Manager in the 1920’s and he could have even been Mayor at one time … who made the trip to New York and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Now the next photo is one that I had copied and showed the ship at a lower level being sent off from the ways. I am surprised that the Navy does not have copies of the prints that I am going to show and I can only think that maybe the ones that I am showing were shot by a photographer that the City of Pensacola might have hired in New York to record this event for them. I have not seen them in any local archives such as the Historic Trust, so without further ado …
Interesting don’t you think? The next photo is a Navy photo showing the boat coming down the ways from out in the East River …
Here come the Pensacola out into the East River. The next photo is one that I copied showing the USS Pensacola completely out of the dry dock and off of the ways out in the East River. I believe that the bridge in the background is the Manhattan Bridge. It possibly could be the Williamsburg Bridge, but if I am wrong, I apologize. At least I have a fifty-fifty chance of accuracy and for me that is pretty good…
Look how many tugs it takes to move the Pensacola around! I could have retouched out all of the trash in the East River, but I am striving for authenticity here and besides since this is 1926, I figured that the US DEP would be pretty lax around a naval shipyard. I do not know if we even had a DEP in the twenties, so there goes my claim for authenticity in the last sentence. Next and last image is a Navy photograph of the USS Pensacola ( CA-24 ) tied up at the dock…
In fact you can see part of the bridge I mentioned earlier. There are a lot more images of the USS Pensacola on the Navy here.
I hope you have enjoyed this little bit ” visual ” naval history and how I tied it all together. Don’t get used to it because I will be back to my old self of just posting photographs along with a few unrelated comments. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I have been posting more to Instagram than my blogs, but I have unearthed a lot of new negatives that I have sifting through and will post in the months to come. If anyone happened to be at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when the Pensacola was launched and want to share it first-hand, we would love to here from you. You can find me on Instagram at: frankphardy . For some unknown reason it would not let me do FrankHardyPhotography so I used my middle initial “p”. But you can type “frankhardy” into search and I pop up. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Hoffman Dance Group …
These images are from a dance group that my father used to photograph out at the auditorium at Pensacola Naval Air Station. He photographed this group for many years and I remember going out there with him when I was seven or eight. I remember walking up and down the halls looking at all of the military photographs on the walls. Nothing in particular other than how large and deserted the place was when I was out there. I ran across these negatives recently and they were in fairly good shape and did not look like they would take me too long to get them ready to post. There were quite a few negatives in the envelope, so I just randomly found six to clean-up and post. I am not going to make any comments about any of them, so here it goes …
The negative envelope said ” 1956 ” on it, but I am not sure about that date. If it was 1956, I would have only been three and this would have been too young for me to have gone. However, this was something that he could have photographed for many years and I did not go until later. I do remember this fairly well and I am pretty sure that I went with him for several years a kid. I would imagine that these children’s fathers were in the military or they worked out at the Naval Air Depot on base. If anyone sees these photos and know anything about this ” Hoffman Dance Group “, please let us hear from you. I am interested personally about who Ms. Hoffman is and how long that she had these dance recitals out on the base. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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