Posted 9 years ago
SpiritBear
(813 items)
This was in a group of early WW2 and pre-WW2 photographs.
The machines, to me, look like large engines being either put together or maintained.
At first I thought them to be some kind of turbine engine. Looking further back, you see their faces covered with some cap that has pipes.
In front of each is another smaller machine with binoculars (I think) mounted on the front.
Everything seems to be on wheels. Likely just for moving around, and not part of the strange machines.
We also see one guy on a smoke-break.
But what is this scene of? What are the machines? When is this from?
Soldiers setting up large search lights, in preparation against enemy night air-raids??????
I go with Nevada.
I strongly believe these are search lights. The clothing worn by the closest man and the guy on a smoke break appear to be the Army blue denim work uniforms worn only inside of the U.S. After Pearl Harbor we were seriously worried about an invasion on the West Coast.
Agree search lights and probably West Coast of the US.
scott
Interesting. Thank you all.
The question remains as to what the smaller devices are. The world wonders.
Looks like a film crew setting up as that big Fan is exactly that -- a Big Fan for creating wind for a movie or something. The big black fan in the background. The front things are camera, as they would need several for different angles in the scene
Maybe a film like Pearl Harbor or something and they also employed some Military people.....???
Sorry to disagree with you on this one antiquerose. Those fans look a lot like searchlights to me.
Fortapache, I think those are the searchlight control stations. According to the website I just found, these would normally be several hundred feet away. I think the reason these searchlights and controllers are so close together in a neat line is that the soldiers are doing an equipment layout for maintenance, inspection or accountability.
I just found this interesting web page on WWII searchlights. If you go to the bottom of the page and scroll up to the second to last photo, you'll see a searchlight similar to these. The use of the control station is about a third of the page down. Although the control station device looks a bit different, I think it's just a different model.
http://www.skylighters.org/howalightworks/
Thank you all!
I agree that they do look just like the light and set-up Chrisnp linked.