The World War II Photo of the Week
for 26 February 2001
Scarlet O'Hara at the Stage Door Canteen
It's April 22, 1944 at Ridgewell, Essex,
home of the 381st Bomb Group, and a squadron of newsreel cameramen and photographers has descended on the tarmac to film the christening of B-17 "Stage Door Canteen." On hand to break the bottle of Coca Cola for this special occasion was Prime Minister Churchill's daughter, Mary Churchill, as well as stars of stage, screen and radio, including Vivien Leigh (at the microphone), Alfred Lunt, and Laurence Olivier. With all of those shutterbugs in attendance, we suspected a photo from another angle would turn up, and sure enough we've reproduced Paul Chryst's shot below. "Stage Door Canteen" went on to went to complete over 100 missions. Photo above from the Webmaster's collection; photo below by Paul Chryst.
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