Wednesday, 10 May 2017

Battle of the Coral Sea Competition -- no prize!

Can anyone say what is unusual about these pictures of the Battle of the Coral Sea from Life magazine May 25th 1942?

More photos when someone comes up with the answer.


4 comments:

Robert (Bob) Cordery said...

The battle was recreated for LIFE magazine by Norman Bel Geddes. He was a leading member of the naval wargame group that used Fletcher Pratt's Naval War Game.

All the best,

Bob

Anonymous said...

They are not photos of the battle. They are drawings or possibly photos of models with details added by hand.

Vintage Wargaming said...

Yes they are Norman Bel Geddes' models for Life magazine. Bel Geddes' Wargame was invented according to the New Yorker in 1915 and was played in the 1920s and 30s. It was separate from and different to Fletcher Pratt's game; it was not solely naval but covered land, sea and air. Much of the documentation relating to the game still exists among his papers at the Harry Ransom Centre of the University of Texas at Austin. Harry Pearson wrote an article on Bel Geddes and his Wargame for Vintage Wargaming which can be found here:
http://vintagewargaming.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/wargaming-on-epic-scale-harry-pearson.html

Sean Robert Meaney said...

Reminds me of scifi series model maker david meddings model work. He took a soviet mig, cut the rocket off the wing suspending it forward from the model on wire rapped in cotton wool like smoke from the fired rocket and sent the phot in to be developed. Copped a visit from MI6 who took his model away.