Two snapshots from a U.S. Navy fighter pilot's personal wartime album, 1944. The upper photograph, taken from a companion aircraft during a Combat Air Patrol over Kwajalein Atoll, shows a Navy carrier fighter banking through overcast skies -- the pilot noting simply, 'That's me.' The lower image documents the cost of combat: a fighter recovered on a harbor salvage barge with its propeller bent and curled from impact, damaged by Japanese anti-aircraft fire during operations in the Central Pacific. Together, the pair captures both the routine vigilance of carrier-based air defense and the tangible risks faced by naval aviators during the 1944 Marshall Islands campaign. Project: 218306