Hawai

réf. FRE99 — Oblong Quarto album ca. 18x26 cm 7 x 10 ¼ in. 24 card stock leaves. With 98 original gelatin silver photographs including two loose from ca. 115x148 cm 4 ½ x 5 ¾ in to ca. 64x4 cm 2 ½ x 1 ½ in. With ca. eight real photo postcards ca. 81x12 cm 3 ¼ x 4 ¾ in. Ca. half of the photos with period Japanese captions on the mounts or in negatives. About fifteen carry the mark “Osumi” apparently that of a photographer who supplied views to the fleet. Period full-cloth album fastened with a string. Binding slightly worn about twelve photos missing about ten leaves with fold marks but otherwise a very good album with strong photos. Interesting collection of original gelatin silver photographs taken and collected by a sailor of the Imperial Japanese Navy including a rare series of snapshots from Hawaii in the interwar period. The squadron of the armored cruisers Asama Izumo and Yakumo under Vice-Admiral Hyakutake SaburÅ left Yokosuka on 10 November 1924 with the cadets of the Naval Academy. It stayed at Hilo on the island of Hawaii from 26 November to 15 December then sailed to Mexico Panama San Francisco and Vancouver. On the way back it called at Honolulu before continuing to the Japanese-mandated islands of the South Seas. At the time Japanese immigrants made up the largest ethnic group in Hawaii. The squadron’s visit only months after the US Immigration Act of 1924 had barred further Japanese immigration was a major event for the community. The album contains ninety-eight photographs including about twenty from the Navy’s ocean training cruise to Hawaii. Two important photos show a large crowd of Japanese residents of Honolulu mingling with sailors in white uniforms on the quay and the Honolulu pier lined with rows of touring cars and crowds awaiting the sailors. Several photographs document the sailors’ interactions with the Japanese community of Hilo including a picnic beneath the trees attended by young women in modern bathing suits; a Japanese family posing in an open car decorated with flowers; and a young man in a white shirt holding a trophy cup apparently won in a sporting contest. About three photographs illustrate the excursion to Kilauea volcano for which Japanese residents of Hilo reportedly arranged more than a hundred cars to transport the crews. The images show Kilauea beneath a volcanic smoke glowing lava at night and a lone horseman in a volcanic crater. Two photographs record an ascent of Mauna Kea on horseback showing sailors resting beside their horses on the slopes and a sailor wearing a cowboy hat near the summit. Other views capture Rainbow Falls the Hilo waterfront lined with coconut palms visitors exploring the coastal lava rocks pandanus trees reflected in a pool steep sea cliffs and a town street lined with parked cars. The series concludes with a photograph of an outrigger canoe at Jaluit in the Marshall Islands which was then under Japanese mandate. Over thirty images document the compiler’s naval service in Japanese home waters from Shibushi Bay in Kyushu to Amanohashidate on the Sea of Japan. The photos depict swimming drills landing-party exercises with machine guns rifle marches along a seaside tramline and parades with fixed bayonets. Especially interesting are photographs of new naval technology including a submarine a shipborne observation balloon a running torpedo a motorcycle-mounted machine gun armored cars and an aerial bombing test on a decommissioned warship. A series from Shibushi shows the fleet anchored in the bay crowds gathered around seaplanes on the beach and sailors coming ashore by launch watched by local women in kimono. In 1945 the same bay was designated as a potential landing site for the planned American invasion of Kyushu. The rest of the album shows famous sights the compiler visited ashore among them Tokyo’s Nijūbashi bridge and Marunouchi Miyajima Kamakura Matsushima Beppu and the SuigÅ “water country” around Itako. It also includes personal snapshots sailors viewing Amanohashidate upside down between their legs and a crowded station platform postcards of the foreign warships Nelson Saratoga and Bretagne portraits of naval officers and a handwritten copy of the five precepts of the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors. Overall a rare sailor’s-eye record of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s visit to Hawaii in 1924–1925. hardcover