Today as I was looking around Footnote, I came across some images, uploaded by UCHS1960, that are wonderful examples of the power of photographs.  Nothing points out the similarities and differences between the past and the present the way a photo can.

UCHS1960 has uploaded so many great images it’s hard to choose just a few, but here are some that I particularly liked:

After the 1908 Flood

The Circus Comes To Town

Early Taxi Service

Broadway Gets Cement – 1914

The 1928 Union High Football Team

It’s amazing what a plane can go through and still keep flying.

This morning I was looking through some photos on the site and came into a section of photos taken in England of planes that had been damaged on missions, but still returned to base.

Here are a couple of examples:

Then I came across this one:

I did a little research and found a Missing Air Crew Report for this plane (one member of the crew was killed) and then found Footnote Pages, created from the Social Security Death Index, for the pilot, Lawrence DeLancey and the navigator, Ray Ledoux. I added a few web links and some stories about this amazing event to their pages.

Here’s the first image in the section of battle damaged planes in England. You can browse through the collection using the filmstrip at the bottom to look at other images.

You can view all the World War II Airforce images for free.

The Footnote scanning team has been working in the vaults of The National Archives diligently scanning the complete WWII US Air Force photo collection (officially known as “Black and White and Color Photographs of U.S. Air Force and Predecessor Agencies Activities, Facilities, and Personnel – World War II”).

There are more than 80,000 photographs of aircraft, equipment, air races, bombing tests, and military personnel grouped by regional “war theater.”

The collection is searchable and unique because you can view the entire photograph – both front and back for additional caption information. Start exploring some interesting categories such as D-Day, Battles, Maps, Charts & Drawings, Rescue and thousands more.