The Snapshots in Time Collection
Photo Album Page: U.S. Navy Sailors Ashore in Cadiz, Spain, with Spanish Civil War Damage, 1940
This album page from a U.S. Navy sailor's personal scrapbook records a 1940 port visit to Cadiz, Spain, only months after the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Snapshots document American sailors marching in dress whites along the waterfront alongside images of war-scarred architecture: bullet- and shrapnel-pocked building facades, a Loyalist prison sentry post, and rubble-filled streets still bearing the marks of the recent conflict. Other photographs capture Cadiz's historic architecture, including its monumental city gate and Baroque cathedral. Handwritten captions by the sailor-photographer identify the sites and note the lingering wartime damage, offering a candid, first-person view of a European city in transition on the eve of the Second World War. Project: 218720