Last month, while cleaning out the study of my deceased father, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017), I found a paper bag containing a number of Kodachrome slides from the early and mid-1950s, taken during his time in Korea and also in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois. Kodachrome is extremely stable, and the color on these slides is near pristine. I'll be sharing some of the images over the year.
Unfortunately the mounts on the slides do not have any processing dates, but I know this one was taken sometime between October 9, 1952, and March 7, 1953, because that is the period when he was in Korea with the Air Force. Here, he is standing next to the sign for the 37th Bomb Squadron (L[ight]) Headquarters, the "Home of the Royal Bengals," at K-1, the Pusan West Air Base in South Korea.
I've cropped out much of the background in this picture to emphasize Dad, but the background is the same as in the black-and-white photos in an earlier post on this headquarters, so that further narrows the photograph to the last quarter of 1952. According to a history of the 17th Bomb Group/Wing (of which the 37th Bomb Squadron was a part),
During the October to December [1952] time frame, the 17th moved from K-9 [Pusan East] to K-1 (Pusan West) to allow for the resurfacing of the K-9 runway from PSP to asphalt. The Wing returned to K-9 on 20 December having flown uninterrupted through both moves.
© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.
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