Yank’s Memories of Calcutta

Clyde Waddell, Yank’s Memories of Calcutta, privately published, 1946. Foreword by M Charles Preston, New York.

Black rexine-covered boards with nut and bolt binding album measuring 10 x 13.5 inches, with 60 silver gelatin prints measuring 10 x 8 inches (each) loosely inserted in corner slits in thick sheets, one to a page, with extended facetious captions beneath each photograph, printed below in typewriter typeface.

The album is prefaced by a one-page printed introduction by M Charles Preston of New York City, "ex-enlisted man, former CBI'er and co-worker with the author on Phoenix Magazine in Calcutta, India." This introduction, which includes a half-tone illustration of the photographer with a snake charmer, describes Waddell's career as a war photographer in Asia and the genesis of this album. According to this account, Waddell was a chief photographer for the Houston Press before entering the US Army and coming to the India-Burma Theatre in November 1943, where he was attached to the Public Relations Staff of Southeast Asia Command "with the express purpose of acting as personal press photographer for Supreme Commander Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten." He accompanied Mountbatten throughout Southeast Asia until February 1945, when he was assigned as news photographer to Phoenix Magazine, "a 24-page picture weekly sponsored by the combined U.S.-British command". On leave in Calcutta after the liberation of Singapore, "He took these pictures at the behest of many friends who had been constantly asking him for photos of Calcutta scenes. By the time he completed this project, which brought him into some of the remotest out-of-bounds areas (and even on top of Calcutta's Howrah Bridge), he was flooded with requests from Americans and British for copies of his photographs. That is how this book was born. Requests became so numerous and response to the effort so enthusiastic that Waddell felt compelled to make the album more generally available through fellow 'GI' agents. It is hope you will enjoy your album as much as I enjoyed the association with Clyde during its production. As a documentary of Calcutta, it's tops."

The album contains candid shots of scenes that had rarely been captured on film before. Some are market and street and river scenes, with a few interior pictures of temples, train stations, a Chinese opium den, a brothel, an Indian cremation ground, a Jain temple, city scenes, some aerial views of Calcutta, Hindu priests, a crowded railway platform, a betel nut seller, washer men, people lined up in a kerosene ration queue or trying to clamber into a bus through windows. Many of the photographs feature American soldiers stationed in Calcutta or document American military landmarks in Calcutta, such as the US Army headquarters, a hotel for US Army officers, and the American Red Cross Burra Club. A few of these images are very graphic, and you do not realise what is being portrayed until reading the caption.

The photographs in sequence in the album is mentioned below:-

[Chowringhee Road, Calcutta.]
[View of the River Hugli from the Howrah Bridge, looking north, Calcutta.]
[Aerial view of Calcutta from the Howrah Bridge, looking south.]
[Hindusthan Building, Calcutta.]
[Corner of Harrison Street and Strand Road, Calcutta.]
[View looking south along Chowringhee Road, with the Dhurrumtollah Mosque in the foreground, Calcutta.]
[Karnani Estates, U.S. Army officers apartment hotel, Calcutta.]
[The American Red Cross Burra Club, Calcutta.]
[Old Court House Street, Calcutta.]
[Old Court House Street, Calcutta.]
[Sikh taxi driver and American G.I.s, Calcutta.]
[Tram, Calcutta.]
[Street performer, Calcutta.]
[Snake charmer, Calcutta.]
[Snake charmer, Calcutta.]
[Street scene with American G.I.s, Calcutta.]
[Professor Sher Mohamed, Theatrical performer, Calcutta.]
[Street scene, Calcutta.]
[Shitalanatha Jain Temple, Calcutta.]
[Kalighat Temple, Calcutta.]
[Hindu woman praying at linga shrine, Calcutta.]
[Brahmins worshipping in the Kalighat Temple, Calcutta.]
[Bathing ghat near the Kalighat Temple, Calcutta.]
[Nimtollah Burning Ghat, Calcutta.]
[Nakodha Mosque, Calcutta.]
[Indian women in the grounds of the Shitalanatha Jain Temple, Calcutta.]
[Portraits of two Indian actresses, Binota Bose and Mrs Rekha Mullick, Calcutta.]
[Woman and child in the street, Calcutta.] .br.[Marble Palace, Calcutta.]
[Queueing to buy kerosene, Calcutta.]
[Woman dying in the street, Calcutta.]
[March during the Calcutta Tramway Workers' Union strike, Calcutta.]
[Howrah Bridge, Calcutta.]
[Street scene outside the Calcutta Stock Exchange.]
[View on the Hugli, Calcutta.]
[Loading ships at the Port of Calcutta.]
[Howrah Railway Station, Calcutta (Haora).]
[Interior of Howrah Railway Station, Calcutta (Haora).]
[Indians waiting for a train at Howrah Railway Station, Calcutta (Haora).]
[Roadside shop, probably near Howrah Railway Station, Calcutta (Haora).]
[The New Market (Sir Stuart Hogg Market), Calcutta.]
[American G.I.s buying souvenirs, Calcutta.]
[American G.I.s buying souvenirs, New Market, Calcutta.]
[Street scene with shoeshine boys outside the New American Kitchen, Calcutta.]
[Street traders and American G.I.s, Chowringhee Road, Calcutta.]
[Street traders and American G.I.s, Chowringhee Road, Calcutta.]
[American G.I.s buying souvenirs, Chowringhee Road, Calcutta.]
[American G.I.s at a bookstall, Calcutta.]
[Street scene at night, with hack gharries, Calcutta.]
[Street scene with shoemakers, Calcutta.]
[Street people asleep, Calcutta.]
[Chinese opium den, Calcutta.]
[American G.I. and prostitutes, Calcutta.]
[Eating breakfast on the pavement, Park Street, Calcutta.]
[Fruit vendor, Calcutta.]
[Drying cakes of cow dung for fuel, Calcutta.]
[Paan seller, Calcutta.]
[Street barbers, Calcutta.]
[Cocoanut market, Cornwallis Street, Calcutta.]
[Washermen at work, Calcutta.]