The Estate Sale Chronicles

The 80th anniversary of the end of World War II is being remembered this week. Coincidentally, I just came across a small stack of black and white photographs I found awhile back at an estate sale. They show scenes of daily life for members of the military stationed in the Marshall Islands, probably around 1944.

Since people looking for the history of their relatives' time in the Service during the war sometimes find this page, I will post all the pictures that I found at the sale. I'm sending the original prints to a historian friend who writes about Military Dogs.

The sign reads "Los Angeles City Limits."

This sign shows the distance between Majuro and a number of other locations. Yes, it is reminiscent of the signage in the TV series "M*A*S*H."

A serviceman climbs a tree.

We know the photos were taken at Majuro in the Marshall Islands around 1944, because one of the pictures shows a handmade sign erected in the camp:

"The Beautiful Post-War MAJURO BILTMORE," the sign read. "500 Suites [&] Baths. Get lost in the 6 sensational revolving bars. Skymaster service every hour on the hour. Marshall Islands, home of the famous homoginized grade 'A' Kickopoo Joy Juice. Welcome Jack Benny."

Okay, someone didn't have a proofreader. That's okay; this way, we know the sign was painted by a human.

Sidebar #1: "Skymaster" probably refers to the Douglas C-54 "Skymaster" large transport aircraft used by the US Army Air Force during World War II.

Sidebar #2: "Kickapoo Joy Juice" was originally a volatile fictional moonshine featured in Al Capp's "Li'l Abner" comic strip before and during the War, to which two recurring characters, Hairless Joe and Lonesome Polecat, were addicted. Capp's version contained an assortment of explosive and poisonous ingredients -- turpentine, dynamite, "mule-disinfectant," arsenic -- and it could also eat through metal and solid rock. By the time the War started, "Kickapoo Joy Juice" had become a beverage byword.

We can also deduce the time frame for the photographs because of the notation at the end: "Welcome Jack Benny." The legendary comedian was one of many whose United Service Organization (USO) shows toured the Pacific during the War. Wikimedia Commons even provides us with a US Navy photograph taken during Benny's visit in September 1944.

The caption reads: "Jack Benny on Majuro atoll with Commander W. J. Wicks, USNR, in front of a Japanese-constructed building relabeled as 'The Beautiful Post-War Majuro Biltmore.'"

Newspaper accounts say that the Benny tour of the Pacific was organized by the Hollywood Victory Committee (link in footnotes). The book Stars in Blue notes that Benny's first overseas USO tour started in July 1943: "He and a group of performers such as harmonica [virtuoso] Larry Adler, singer Wini Shaw, actress Anna Lee, and pianist Jack Snyder blazed in ten weeks through the European and African theaters on a 32,000-mile trip, often putting on four shows a day. The next summer [1944] Benny and another troupe, which included actress Carole Landis [as well as Adler, musician June Bruner, and singer Martha Tilton], went island-hopping in a 70,000-mile jaunt across the Pacific, giving performances at outposts, bases, airfields, and hospitals. Benny continued to contribute his professional services until the war ended..."

Left to right: Jack Benny, Larry Adler, June Bruner, Carole Landis, and Martha Tilton. In a newspaper article, Adler referred to them as the "SNAFU Five," using a military term that you can look up.

Jack Benny, Larry Adler, and June Bruner.

Here's a link to some old film footage of the Benny troupe's journey to the Pacific.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aunEUqmCDA

And here are some more photos taken by our serviceman, showing the building:

Unfortunately, he didn't make notes on the backs of the photo prints, so we don't know the names of the servicemen in the photos. But we do know, from the photos that the serviceman saved, that a little dog was an informal part of the company.

I'll crop the photos to better show the canine companion.

Two servicemen with a dog, outside a Japanese-constructed building on Majuro Atoll.

Closeup:

A seated serviceman holds a little dog in his lap outside a Japanese-constructed building, Majuro Atoll, around 1944.

Closeup:

They were so young.

Much has already been written about the history of military dogs and mascot canines (and other animals) during World War II. They provided comradeship and a sense of normalcy during the temporary, unfamiliar, often nerve-wracking circumstances of global conflict.

I wonder what this little dog friend's name was? Did it travel with the servicemen as a mascot, or was it a local dog who found its way to them? Perhaps someone who sees this post can help fill in the gaps in the story.

And I wonder if the little dog saw the plane with the entertainers land at Majuro? Did it witness the excitement among the humans? Did it stand at a distance, wagging its tail as the men laughed and cheered?

The performers flew to another performance; eventually, all the American military personnel went back home. The little dog's life had intersected with theirs for such a brief time. But it was an important time. The dog was there when the humans needed it most.

______

Postscript:

Left to right: Jack Benny, Larry Adler, June Bruner, Carole Landis, and Martha Tilton. In a newspaper article, Adler referred to them as the "SNAFU Five," using a military term that you can look up.

Jack Benny, Larry Adler, and June Bruner.

Here's a link to some old film footage of the Benny troupe's journey to the Pacific.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aunEUqmCDA

Benny and Company arrived back in Los Angeles on September 18, 1944, and held a press conference at the Biltmore Hotel downtown. The Los Angeles Evening Citizen-News covered the story.

References:

Wikimedia Commons:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Jack_Benny_-_USN_1.jpg

Wise, James E., Jr. and Anne Collier Rehill. Stars in Blue: Movie Actors in America's Sea Services. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

The USO in World War II: https://www.uso.org/stories/2988-on-its-80th-anniversary-the-uso-looks-back-on-eight-decades-of-standing-by-the-us-military

Hollywood Victory Committee:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Victory_Committee

Larry Adler and his harmonica in "The Singing Marine," 1937:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1WoAVU8M3o

Martha Tilton and Jack Benny recounted their USO shows on his television show in 1963:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUZpBrrbQUQ

June Bruner:

https://www.classicactresses.org/2024/12/junebruner.html

An ad for Jazz At The Philharmonic
in the Berkeley, California Daily Gazette,
14 November 1951

Last fall I had the chance to look through some paper ephemera collected by some extended family members. Two of the items were of particular interest to me: programs and ticket stubs from impresario Norman Granz' famous Jazz At The Philharmonic Concerts series. When they were young, two family members went to the JATP concerts in San Francisco in 1951 and 1952.

Someone else now owns these programs, but I took photographs of some of the pages in an old scrapbook to share here.

Eleventh tour program cover

"We went with Dan & Joyce. I wore my new gray suit. It sure was 'greatness.' Afterwards pizza!" the young concertgoer wrote in her scrapbook underneath the 1951 concert program.

San Francisco Civic Auditorium

What must it have been like to have been young and in love with one another and with music, on a chilly November 1951 evening at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium? The four teenagers must have known they were witnessing greatness, as far as the music was concerned: Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Gene Krupa, Lester Young, Illinois Jacquet, Flip Phillips, Roy Eldridge, Bill Harris, Ray Brown, and Hank Jones performed.

What the young music lovers probably observed, but might not have really grasped at the time, was the nature of the concert series itself. With integrated bands and audiences, Jazz At The Philharmonic concerts (from 1944 to 1957) were part of the slow demise of legalized segregation in the United States.

Impresario Norman Granz (1918-2001)

Today Norman Granz is remembered as a hard-nosed visionary leader in the fight for equal pay for Black artists, and for his refusal to stage concerts for segregated audiences. It sure was greatness, indeed.

The young couple returned, with other friends, for the 1952 concert.

An ad for the 12th season of JATP in the Richmond,
California Independent, 14 November 1952.

The 1952 JATP lineup featured Ella Fitzgerald, Flip Phillips, Lester Young, Buddy Rich, Charlie Shavers, Roy Eldridge, Ray Brown, Barney Kessel, Hank Jones, the Gene Krupa, Willie Smith, and Oscar Peterson. This time, someone went backstage to get autographs from some of the performers.