May 19, 2013
Shots of War: The Last Battle
continued
Vaccaro, an infantryman, developed 8,000 photographs in his foxhole, using pinches of photographic chemicals mixed in four GI helmets. The lush, richly detailed fourteen-by-twenty-four-inch black-and-white photographs offer a look at the brutality behind the recent shiny sentimentality about the "Greatest Generation."
Nearby cases of local World War II artifacts include a bitter song from the era by an anonymous Ypsilantian about as pleased by his hometown as he is about the prospect of going to war:
| Well, I been hearin' 'bout World War Two, Airplane engines and combat shoes Tiny little people crawlin' in the grease, And I've signed on for a one-year lease. . . . Well the kids are hangin' around In a broken-down paper mill, And the Huron River don't act alone And a passenger train can kill Ooo, that's Michigan Avenue for you, You know it only leads out of town. . . . I'm gettin' outta Washtenaw County. I'm gettin' outta Washtenaw County. And I'm gonna burn down Ypsilanti. |
One of three perusable scrapbooks of World War II propaganda and news clippings on a table in the museum's rear room displays the resolutely upbeat home-front approach to the war. "Do with less — so they'll have enough," admonishes one postcard. "Rationing means a fair share for all of us," says another. A third implores, "Americans! Share the meat as a wartime necessity!" and explains that the average adult should consume no more than two and a half pounds of meat a week.
©1998-2013 Ann Arbor Observer - All Rights Reserved