As World War II ended, Bob Hutchins of Waukegan, Illinois was an 18 year old infantry rifleman on a troop ship headed for the far east, having trained for the invasion of Japan. He spent the next year in the Philippine Islands at the port of Batangas, Luzon, first as a private, then as an NCO in the base motor command. During his tour of duty, his father sent him a 35 mm camera from home, and with the few rolls of film available to him Bob took photographs of scenes in and around Batangas and in the back country on the island of Luzon north of Batangas City. "A Wartime Photo Journal" presents a selection of those photographs.



When his overseas duty ended in September 1946, Bob embarked in Manila Harbor aboard the U.S. Army Transport Admiral C.F. Hughes, for the three-week trip back to San Francisco. With his remaining film, he recorded a sampling of life on an army troop ship in the aftermath of World War II. The shipboard photos capture a great amount of detail -- of the men in his unit, of the arrival in San Francisco, and of the army transport that had been commissioned in 1944 and would also see service in the Korean War and Vietnam War.