Photographs

This collection contains newsletters, religious service programs, photographs, artwork, and personal ephemera documenting the Navy service of Andrew J. Blair with Construction Battalion Detachment 1045 in the Mediterranean Area and the 147th Naval Construction Battalion on Okinawa. Materials reflect Blair’s roles as organist, assistant chaplain, cartoonist, and illustrator, and document battalion religious life and campus activities.

The bulk of the collection consists of daily and periodic newsletters produced by Blair’s units, including the Oily Rag (Construction Battalion Detachment 1045, 1944-1945), The Junior Rag (1944), and Mate Slate (147th Naval Construction Battalion, Okinawa, 1945), many featuring Blair’s original cartoons. These newsletters report on war news, sports, entertainment, religious services, and camp announcements.

Religious activity is extensively documented through mimeographed worship programs, including Protestant, Catholic, communion, Thanksgiving, and memorial services, produced at Camp Peary and at Mediterranean and Okinawa duty stations, many bearing Blair’s illustrations. Several chaplains recur throughout, including J.T. Burns, S.O. Price, Charles C. Butler, L.H. Peterson, James H. Underwood, Robert J. White, T. Russell Nunan, and Paul C. Edgar. Materials include a memorial service program for four sailors killed aboard LST-3, correspondence and forms related to Blair’s application for promotion to Specialist (W) First Class, and Blair’s original artwork, including a chapel design sketch and cut-out cartoons with accompanying descriptive typescript.

Photograph materials depict servicemen, military installations and chapels, chaplains and religious services, entertainment and musical performances, and daily camp life at Camp Peary, in the Mediterranean, and Okinawa. Also present is a photograph documenting the public humiliation of two women accused of collaborating with German forces, and photographs of military funeral services.

Additional materials include personal correspondence, postcards, greeting cards, a telegram, souvenir and travel ephemera from Williamsburg, Camp Peary, Richmond, and Marseille, printed booklets (prayer and hymn collections, French-English dictionaries, and a Japanese children’s reader), a Bible with a heart plate and accompanying letter, and two copies of a 147th Naval Construction Battalion yearbook.