Any good place to get ww2 pictures. Specifically the Aleutian Islands in Alaska ?

Hi Larry Falkowski

A quick search through our catalog using "Dutch Harbor" as my search term, and then limited it by "Photographs and Other Graphic Materials" on the left-hand side panel. It looks like there are several series that contain photographs about Dutch Harbor.

One is entitled "Photographs of the Allies and Axis." It has a file unit list which includes some basic information about all the folders in the boxes. This series is held at the National Archives at College Park, in the Still Pictures Division. You can contact them at stillpix@nara.gov

The other series that looks right time-wise is the series  "Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs" It also includes an item-level list of the photographs, many of which have been digitized and are available online. The contact for this series is the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, NY, at roosevelt.library@nara.gov

Finally, I'm including the original search I made so you can dive off from there. Dutch Harbor Search

Happy researching!

Hi Larry,

While these are not directly WWII, I thought maybe these pictures of Dutch Harbor might help give perspective.  My apologies in advance if you've already looked at the Library of Congress.

Dave

Search Results: "dutch harbor alaska" - Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (Library of Congress)

Concerning Still Pix at College Park, yes they do have a vendor system but you are probably better off hiring an independent researcher who will do it faster and for less. NARA has a list of independent researchers you can consult, and of course yours truly is on it.

Sim Smiley

For those hoping to see less formal photos and stories from the Aleutians during World War II, there was a monthly publication called "ACS News Bulletin", a "-R-E-S-T-R-I-C-T-E-D-" newsletter, quite well written, assembled, printed, and distributed from Seattle. In one of my dad's Army trunks, I came across most issues from Vol. 1 No. 1 (November 1942, 4 pages) through Vol. 4 No. 9 (September 1945). The latter finally revealed the secrets of radar and the story of how their stations were set up despite 100 mph gusts commonly experienced in the Aleutians.

Perhaps a place to look for photo sources is a multivolume (either four or five volume) series by Stan Cohen titled The Forgotten War: A Pictorial History of World War II in Alaska and Northwest Canada.  It was published by Pictorial Histories out of Missoula, Montana. While all of the volumes usually have some photos of the Aleutians, volume three covered the islands in depth, so you could at least see where Cohen sourced his photos.

My wife and I were stationed on Adak in the 1980's, so I became interested in Alaska's military heritage and thus became acquainted with Mr. Cohen's works.

Larry, hope you've had some luck finding photographs. This photo from Record Group 80 (General Records of the  Department of the Navy) is one of my favorites in all of the National Archives. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/520976

A nephew who teaches at the University of Alaska says there are some archives at the Anchorage campus library, but they're not digitized. Here's the overview, however:  Home - World War II in Alaska - All Guides at UAA / APU Consortium Library