Some new WWI Digital Collections uploads.

As part of our ongoing efforts to make our World War I holdings available online, several batches of photographs have been added to our WWI photographs digital collections site in February.

Specifically these are:

  • WWI photographs, 1918-1935. Coll No. 2001.073. An album of photos taken by an anonymous soldier in the U.S. Army. From internal context he may have been in either the 1st or 2nd Balloon Company, observation units on front lines with French Eighth Army and American I Corps and later with III Corps as part of occupation forces. Included in this are several sets of found images taken by one or more anonymous German photographers.
  • Remembrances of the Great War; Hounslow, 1917-1918 photographs. Coll. No. 1000.062. A photograph album created by an anonymous person in Hounslow. From internal context this person may have been a woman either signed to Hounslow area as part of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (later Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps) or else resident there. Of interest are the references to 85 Squadron of the RFC, noted for having had 8 aces in its time in France.
  • Salonika Macedonia WWI-era photograph album. Coll No. 1000.061. A photograph album created by an anonymous soldier in the British Army. From internal context he may have been an officer in the 1st bn. of the Royal Irish Regiment serving in Salonika in the Macedonian Campaign. This Battalion sailed from Marseilles to Salonika in November of 1915. In November 1916 to October 1918, they were part of the 30th Brigade, 10th (Irish) Division.

Collections we’ve discussed previously here have been upgraded and uploaded to this new location.

  • Walter Oswald “Toby” Watt photographs, 1914-1915. Coll. No. 2008.045. It is unknown who put together this scrapbook of personal photographs.  Walter Oswald Watt, OBE (1878–1921) was an Australian aviator and businessman. He was the first Australian to qualify for a Royal Aero Club flying certificate, in 1911. Watt joined the French Foreign Legion as a pilot on the outbreak of World War I. He was forced down more than once.  He transferred to the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) in 1916. He received the Legion of Honour and Croix de Guerre, and was twice mentioned in despatches during the war, Watt was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1919. He is commemorated by the Oswald Watt Gold Medal for outstanding achievement in Australian aviation, and the Oswald Watt Fund at the University of Sydney.
  • Destruction of zeppelin near London: six pictures. Coll. No. 2002.013. This is actually the destruction not of a Zeppelin, but rather the Shütte-Lanz 11, 3 September 1916. This link will also show an image taken from WWI photographs, 1918-1935. Coll No. 2001.073 of the SL-11 before it’s fateful trip to England.

About Marc Carlson

The Librarian of Special Collections and University Archives, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa since November 2005.He holds a Masters in Library and Information Studies from the University of Oklahoma, and a Bachelor of Arts in History and Anthropology from Oklahoma State University. He has worked in McFarlin Library since 1986.
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