The Snapshots in Time Collection

U.S. Navy Personnel Posing with an Automobile, China, 1930s (Double Exposure)

U.S. Navy Personnel Posing with an Automobile, China, 1930s (Double Exposure)

This double-exposed snapshot captures a lighter moment from the U.S. Navy's peacetime presence in China during the 1930s, when American naval personnel served aboard river gunboats and shore stations protecting U.S. interests in Chinese treaty ports. Informal photographs like this one, taken during off-duty hours, offer a rare candid glimpse of daily life for sailors stationed abroad in the years before the outbreak of the Pacific War. Project: 218183