This photograph, part of a labeled 'Karen Church Service' negative series from a WWII China-Burma-India theater collection, depicts Karen villagers gathered inside a traditional bamboo meeting hall. The Karen, an ethnic minority of the Burmese hill country, were key wartime allies of Allied special operations forces, including OSS Detachment 101, who organized Karen guerrilla resistance against Japanese occupation. Images such as this document daily and communal life within Karen communities during the tumultuous years of the Burma campaign. Project: 218032