USS Saint Louis CL-49 off of San Pedro, California – October 5, 1944

Her camouflage paint is Measure 32, Design 2c.

Note her three forward 6”/47 gun turrets, a characteristic of the Brooklyn-class light cruisers.

The last two of the nine Brooklyn-class cruisers, St. Louis & Helena, were highly modified from the original design with new higher pressure boilers, a machinery layout that alternated boiler & engine rooms, and improved AA armament consisting of twin 5”/38 turrets.

Note; USN Sources consider St. Louis & Helena as the St. Louis or CL-49 class of light cruisers

USS St. Louis survived WW2, and served in the Brazilian Navy as the Almirante Tamandaré from 1951 to 1976, she sank under tow to be scrapped in 1980.

USS Helena CL-50 was torpedoed and sunk in the Battle of Kula Gulf on July 6, 1943.

NARA – 19-N-72219

USMC Goodyear FG-1A Corsair with VMF-114 at a Peleliu airfield – September 29, 1944

Note Curtiss R5C-1 transport plane in the background

FG-1A BuNo 14513 was lost off Palau on November 6, 1944

The FG-1 was the designation for Corsairs that were license-built by Goodyear, to the same specifications as the Vought Corsairs. Goodyear began delivery of FG-1 Corsairs in April 1943, and continued production until the end of the war, delivering around 4,007 FG-1 series Corsairs, including sixty to the RNZAF and 857 to the RN as Corsair Mk IVs.

Guard at the BBC Broadcasting House in London with a P14 Enfield (Pattern 1914) rifle w/ bayonet – 1940

Developed from the experimental Pattern 1913 Enfield rifle, P14 rifles were made for the UK during WW1 by three companies in the USA; Winchester, Remington, & Eddystone

1,235,298 P14 rifles were produced from 1915–1917. In 1926 the P14 Enfield was re-designated by the British military as the No3Mk1.

Re-issued during WW2, P14s / No3Mk1s were finally declared obsolete in British service by 1947, but the sniper variants continued to be used by British and Australian units through the Korean War.

LIFE Magazine Archives – Hans Wild Photographer WWP-PD