U.S. Navy Ensign Albert Lerch, fighter ace, leans on an aircraft, PTO, 1945

Description: 

Photograph. U.S. Navy Ensign Albert Lerch posing for picture with airplane on deck of aircraft carrier. Official Caption: "Rome, 6/25/45--Ace in One Flight--U.S. Navy Ensign Albert Lerch, 22 years old, became an air ace in his first engagement with Japanese aircraft. He flew a fighter plane from a Navy carrier off Okinawa and with another flier, intercepted 30 enemy planes. Ensign Lerch shot down six enemy fighters and one bomber.--Navy photo through Rome OWI--Approved by appropriate military authority--(list A out). 6859." Pacific Ocean. 25 June 1945

Image Information

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Date: 
06/25/1945
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Items from the service of Isaac "Ike" Bethel Utley, who was born in Smith Mills, Kentucky on 3 March 1920. Ike enlisted in the Army Air Corps on 19 January 1942. He was shipped overseas to the European Theatre and worked with a supply division based out of the city of Naples with an office set up in a residential villa. Utley worked with the Office of War Information and used their photographs in news articles to inform soldiers of the progress of the war. At war's end, Utley returned stateside. A trunk full of over 800 photographs from the O.W.I. arrived on his doorstep from his office in Italy, sender unknown. This collection consists of those photographs.
Geography: 
Pacific Ocean
Latitude: 
-0.500
Longitude: 
-91.000
Thesaurus for Graphic Materials: 
Fighter pilots--American
Fighter planes--American
Portrait photographs--Pacific Ocean