Union Station Photoshoot

A Navy Couple Kisses Goodbye
Photo by "A Timeless Collection"

On January 28^th, 2018, our Commanding officer participated in a photoshoot being organized by Corporal Jasset (of “A Timeless Collection”) at Union Station in Worcester, MA. The theme of this shoot was the servicemen (and women) shipping off after Pearl Harbor. We had ten reenactors there in total, plus three people taking shots and video. We were split up into couples. Three of our couples were actually together in real life so that made it much easier, and with the atmosphere it didn’t take long for the other couples to get into the swing of things and act the part.

     Each couple was taken for individual shots as well as group shots in the main foyer of the station. Thankfully the venue still looked very much like it did in the 1940s so the ambiance was there and Cpl Jasset didn’t have to try and work around a bunch of modern garbage in the background. Large wooden doors and stone walls gave for a great atmosphere to get into “character” and look as though we were really waiting for our train to ship off. A small group of people portraying members of the U.S. Navy were taken off and given their own small photoshoot which yielded some very powerful images. 

Photo by "A Timeless Collection"

    While not everyone in the group chose to immerse themselves in this scenario that we were all trying to create, some did including our commanding officer, Lieutenant Fraser. Given the date that the scenario was centered around, Lt. Fraser chose to wear his winter service uniform with his sergeant’s stripes. He also chose to wear fewer ribbons as many of them had not been created and/or authorized by Congress in the early months of 1942. He opted for this for the reason of character continuity with the impression that he had created.

Photo by "A Timeless Collection"

     Many men, who started World War II as NCOs in both the Army and the Marines, would find themselves holding officer’s commissions as a result of battlefield promotions by the early months of 1943. The reason for this was a lack of experienced officers due to the 90 days it took to train a fresh officer, and the speed at which officers were often killed. Yet even with this common practice, it’s an impression that is rarely touched on by reenactors on either the Allied or Axis side. We will have more on this sort of role in a later post devoted to “mustangers.”

     Since Lieutenant Fraser has chosen the impression of one of these mustangers, he took the opportunity to utilize the photoshoot to deepen his connection with the “character” he has created for B/1/21. He was paired with Whitney Chaplin, a friend of Corporal Jasset, and together the pair played the part of a couple who has been through a deployment, but that doesn’t make the experience any easier for them.

     This story was fairly common in the early days of World War II.

Photo by
"A Timeless Collection"

While new recruits were being sent off to their training and then to join up with the units they would serve with in combat, many who were already in the military had seen duty overseas. For the Marines, the interwar period had been marked by combat operations in Hatti, Nicaragua, and Honduras during the so-called “Banana Wars” of the mid-1920s into the early 1930s. In addition to this the Marines had men deployed to the Philippines and China prior to the war as well. So it was not uncommon for Marines to have already deployed to faraway places prior to the outbreak of World War II.

     Lieutenant Fraser took the opportunity to think about this in terms of his character. How would “Mick Fraser” have felt about leaving? Who was he leaving behind? How would he deal with the knowledge that this might be the very last time he saw these people? These were all things he had to think about from the standpoint of a former factory worker who had been laid off during the depression and joined the Marines out of desperation? The answer was; he would be strong. He had already seen hardship before and knew that nothing in life was handed to him. He had joined the military out of a sense of survival after his regular working income had been terminated as a result of the national Depression; leaving to defend his country was just as necessary. Did he want to go to war? No. He wasn’t one of those enthusiastic young men who formed the que outside of the recruiter’s office that seemed to go on for miles, full of men who longed to see action and get their revenge for Pearl Harbor. That

Sgt. Fraser Says Goodbye.
Photo by "A Timeless Collection"

isn’t to say that Sergeant Fraser wasn’t angered by the attack on the US base, or that he didn’t want to see America’s enemies pay for what they did, but he knew what war would mean, he had known enough combat veterans during his time in the Marines, that he knew the horrors that awaited them. He would, of course, face them and lead his men to the best of his ability, but where some of the younger men shipping out would have smiled and laughed and told jokes about how many enemy soldiers they would kill, Sergeant Fraser knew better.

     These are the deeper thoughts and deeper understandings that events like the Union Station Photoshoot can provide for reenactors who have thought about their impressions and the background of those impressions. Events like these are rare, and the photoshoots allow for the participants to really put themselves in the shoes of their impressions because that’s what makes the emotions look real. Immersive events (which will be covered in later posts), Photoshoots like this one, and tacticals can be great places to start thinking about life in the 1940s and what these scenes mean for your impressions. Leaving for the war was something that every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, German, Russian, Japanese, Italian, Frenchman, Englishman did. It was one of the few things that everyone who fought in World War II (regardless of which side they were on) shared. So how does that moment, such an important moment of change, affect your impression, and your character? Are they better for it? Put yourself in their shoes, read the stories of those who really went through it and then ask yourself if your character could have really been strong and left everything they knew and loved to fight for what they believed? Understanding that moment, will give you a key to understanding your impression even better.

A Soldier gives one last smile to his sweetheart
Photo by "A Timeless Collection"

If you’d like to see the complete set from the Union Station Shoot, please go to Facebook and like “A Timeless Collection” and check out their brand new website at www.Timelessages.com!