The Snapshots in Time Collection

Boy Scout Monument (Rizal Avenue Landmark), Manila, Luzon, Philippines, WWII Era

Boy Scout Monument (Rizal Avenue Landmark), Manila, Luzon, Philippines, WWII Era

This weathered negative captures Manila's landmark Boy Scout statue, long used as a roadside distance marker on Rizal Avenue, photographed by an American serviceman during the WWII Luzon campaign. Surviving amid the widespread destruction of the 1945 Battle of Manila, such civic monuments offered soldiers a tangible link to the city's prewar identity even as the war raged around them. Project: 218434