The prompt image for Sepia Saturday this week featured a group of men playing, “Push Ball.” It’s a game I’ve never heard of before, but taken as a group of men, my image fits in! Something about the prompt image immediately brought this one to mind, so I’m going with it. The image is from a set taken by Earl William Powis (15 Oct 1896 – 26 Mar 1973) while he was serving in the Navy during WWI (1917-1919, stationed at Yorktown, Virginia. It doesn’t look like Earl is in this photo, so I’m assuming he was the photographer and took a photo of a few of his friends to send home. The back has no label or precise date, so all we know is that they’re Navy men stationed at Yorktown and a two year span which isn’t terrible in terms of identifying an unlabelled photo!
Photos of sailors on land are not all that common. It’s interesting that they wear regulation military puttees or leggings. I don’t think sailors were very fond of marching with them.