Navy Pre-Flight School Photos, Part 2
We continue our mini-series on the photos taken by the U.S Navy during World War II at the Navy Pre-Flight School at St. Mary's College in Moraga, California, east of San Francisco. This was one of several U.S. facilities where the Navy trained men to be pilots.
Above, swim training for the flight cadets in February 1943. As was usual in those days, swimsuits were not worn at a male-only facility.
Photos were taken of new recruits coming into the facility. Later, a second photo was taken of each cadet to document the physical changes after months of intensive training.
Above, new recruit W.S DeJung. For some reason, all of the nude photos date from June 13, 1942. After that, cadets wore jockstraps for the photos.
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D. DeKalb. I got this photo from the blog Vintage Muscle Men. Thanks, Jerry!
Harry Edwards Devore. Some of the photos on the Internet have been cropped, like this one, to eliminate the rulers that originally surrounded the front, rear and side views.
Donald M. Fulton. A bit of one ruler remains after cropping.
Robert D. Gaskill. It's safe to say that all these men have passed away. Since they were 18 or older in 1942, they would be 100 years old or older today.
James P. Hancock. In the side view photos, someone is holding the cadet's arms up horizontally. I don't know the purpose of this hand-holding, but it had the side effect that the cadet's hands are not blocking our view of his penis.
G. L. Harriet.
A. E. Helbling.
Robert E. Paine.
C. W. Richardson.
J. M. Robertson.
M.K. Robinson.
We end today with D. J. Russell.
Next time: more Navy pre-flight training school photos.
7 comments:
Is our military still so open about being naked?
It's really a complicated question. Society and the moral of society has changed a lot since back then. In some ways or society is a lot less prude today. On the other people are much more body aware. With that in mind I can only talk about my own country, Denmark, this pictures actually shows a lack of respect and understanding for the recruits and men in general. So in some ways there's less nudity in army, but on the hand there's more liberal attitude towards nudity in the army. In my country men and women share quarters. They sleep together and often they choose to shower together. So in some way there's more nudity in the Danish army than back then.
Are these before or after photos?
WOW!! That is so interesting that men and women might even shower together, or otherwise see each other while naked. It is difficult for me to imagine such openness, other than at nudist resorts. Things are so much different than here in the United States
Delightful and interesting.
@jimboylan2 - These are all "before" photos. The naked photos were all taken on one day, June 13, 1942. As far as I can tell, this was the first day of the photo program. On all subsequent days, including all "after" photos, the cadets wore jockstraps.
what nice bodies!
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