TheGrelicksCollection

This is a sideblog to Grelicks - intended for me to post and share with my Tumblr-friends some of the old photos I have collected over the years: original prints bought on eBay or other auctions, photos literally found in the streets or in garbage cans, old family photos etc. May contain some NUDITY. Also lots of aircraft... All photos to appear here are scanned from the original old prints in my possession - not reblogs / reposts of stuff "found on the net". Hope you enjoy. - A.

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Part 2. (Part 1 was here.)

[photos by Dimitris Harissiadis (1911-1993) - vaccination in the late ’40s in Greece by Swedish & Danish Red Cross personnel]

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Guess what...

[photo by Dimitris Harissiadis (1911-1993) - vaccination in the late ’40s in Greece by personnel of the Swedish Red Cross]

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North American AT-6D c/n 88-17447, s/n 42-85666 operated by the Chinese airline CATC (Central Air Transport Corporation), circa 1948. (source: UN Archives, S-0801-0007-0001-00003).

The original caption reads: “CNRRA-UNRRA cholera vaccine is rushed aboard a CHT AT6 plane at Lunghwa for shipment to Chengchow, Honan, where the supply of UNRRA vaccine has been exhausted by mass inoculations in Chengchow and vicinity.”

I found this photo while browsing through the UN Archives, in preparation of a couple of articles I’m working on, regarding the relief and rehabilitation (nowadays we would say: humanitarian) efforts in the aftermath of WWII - and it immediately struck me as something strangely resonating with today’s issues… and as an image of hope. Let’s hope 2021 would be a better, healthier year for everyone around the world.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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Death of a 1930s airport hangar…

From top to bottom:

1-3. This particular aircraft hangar was built on the island of Corfu in the early 1930s by the French company AULO / Air Orient, a precursor of Air France, to shelter their flying boats, then in service in their Eastern Med routes (see pic 1) [Andreas Stamatopoulos / Nikos Desyllas / Grelicks collection]

4. In February 1949, the hangar was dismantled, brought to Athens and set up again at Hassani/Ellinikon airport.  [Andreas Stamatopoulos / Grelicks collection]

5. It was initially used by TAE, a precursor of Olympic Airways [from I. Theologis’s book]

6. Said hangar in the late 1950s or early 1960s [photo: Megalokonomou, Grelicks collection]  Please note that the other hangar, on the right (pics 6 & 7), was also brought dismantled to Athens from the island of Rhodes, in the early 1950s: it was most probably a WWII Italian military hangar…

7-8. Said hangar(s) in 1982, photographed by the late Andreas Stamatopoulos [Grelicks collection]. 

9. Last photo by Grelicks, August 2018.

10. Now you see them… now you don’t… (Ηλία, ρίχ’ το….) [photo source: anagennisipolkeoa FB ]

Lamda Development and your supporters (Άδωνις, Καθημερινή κτλ.), I admit I personally and respectfully have a very precise idea where I would like you to stick your “development plans” (casinos, malls etc…)… 

UP YOURS!

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To the Anon that just sent me this 1946 article about AMFOGE (see relevant posts here and here): thanks!

There’s also the above British Pathé newsreel available on Youtube...

Take care - thanks again.

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A HAF Canadair CL-215 firefighting aircraft in a b&w photo taken by my late father, T.K., with his trustful Kiev camera, apparently in the late ’70s.

The first CL-215s entered service with the HAF in 1973 and, although in 1999 the newer turboprop CL-415s came to strengthen the Greek firefighting aerial fleet, some of the original 215s, with their WWII radial engines are still in service, doing their best every summer.

I have some twenty photos like this, taken in my childhood by my father, myself or even my younger brother: in other words, a wildfire, followed by the spectacular aerial ballet of the Canadairs, was more or less a permanent feature of summer vacations. The deep sound of their old piston engines was and still is a reassuring sign that help was/is on its way.

Alas, yesterday’s tragedy was not avoided.

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On board a riverboat... somewhere in Germany, in the 1930s... – or so I understand.

This comes from a little photo album of an unnamed German family, containing some 45 snapshots from the 1930s. Printed mostly on Agfa Lupex paper, some on Agfa Brovira; a few of them (not this one) were printed at a photo lab in Dresden.

The entire album (along with some other goodies) was a recent magnificent gift from my good friend Martin @45fthc – vielen Dank mein Freund! :)

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No need to elaborate, is there? This comes from the same lot of photos as this one – but that’s a different girl. The plane is a post-war Cub variant, and that’s probably the late ’40s or early ’50s. (eBay purchase, Grelicks collection.)

Enjoy your Sunday!

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One ride in an airplane will sell you on aviation for the rest of your life... July 23, 1921. Someone’s mother (”mother” handwritten affectionately on the back at a later date) posing in front of the Curtiss Jenny biplane of a barnstormer offering joyrides. Photo printed by Mlinar’s Picture Shop, Greene, Iowa. (eBay purchase, Grelicks collection.)

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Bonnie & Albert... More of the Piper Cub and beautiful ladies series... :P This is again a standard Piper J-3 Cub. (eBay purchase, Grelicks collection.)

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[Athens], April 10, 1961. Found photo, from the Sevasti P. lot.

Given the Spring date, I thought this was probably taken on Easter. Then I checked: in 1961, Easter day was on April 9. Which, in a way, makes it even more interesting: family and friends getting together around a table even on Easter Monday.

Happy Easter...

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A short break from the Piper Cub series, for a bit of Cessna (although, admittedly, a Cessna NOT as beautiful as this one).

The time seems to be November 1957.

The aircraft is Cessna 195 (1947-1954) N1008D c/n 7616, built in 1950, which according to the FAA is still around.

The place is apparently Chicago Midway Airport, established in 1923 as Chicago Air Park, then Chicago Municipal Airport, renamed after the eponymous WWII battle in 1949, now Chicago Midway International Airport.

The company is “Midway Airlines”  – but this is neither one of the two “Midway Airlines” you can find in Wikipedia.

According to Ed Coates: “There have been several airlines with this name. However, so far as I know, this was the first one. Midway was a commuter airline based at Chicago's Midway Airport in 1950 (before O'Hare was opened) with a small fleet of four Cessna 195s, and offered flights to various locales in the Greater Chicago area (Meigs Field, et al). [...] Midway ceased operations in 1953.“ (to be checked, as our photo here was taken in 1957).

You can see a full view of one of her sister ships, N9325A, from the Ed Coates collection here.

Some other US airport photo posts: here.

Needless to say that, apart from the Cessna, the kangaroo logo, and the overall 1950s feeling, I simply love the state of the hangar in the background...

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Fresh from the family archives (my mother just found this photo and gave it to me): this is one of my oncle Loukas’s ( a brother of my mother’s mother) cars. My mother thought this was a Studebaker (apparently a name that had stuck in the family’s recollections), but I rather think this is a Pontiac. Update: yeap, JTM seems to be right, this looks indeed like a 1953 Pontiac Chieftain! :))

Loukas A. spent his life as an “automobilist” (”αυτοκινητιστής”), i.e. a taxi driver, based in the town of Thiva. He also fought in the Greco-Italian war, in 1940-1941 – I have somewhere a tape I recorded of him, relating his wartime recollections. He died in the 1990s. More about him in a forthcoming post.

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Jorgito! LV-FBF, registered in Argentina, seems to be again one of the largest Cub variants, a PA-12 Super Cruiser, like the one shown yesterday, or maybe a Piper J-5 Cub Cruiser, its immediate predecessor. I can’t seem to be able to find anything on LV-FBF on the internet... :/// Nevertheless, I did promise you a virtual tour of the world with this Piper Cub series - so here is today the Argentinian pampa! (eBay purchase, Grelicks collection.)

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Back to our Cub series: What we have here is NC92708 (the full registration is seen in another photo of it I got at the same time), c/n 12-142, built in 1946 and most probably still around, which apparently at some point did (or intended to do) a Latin American Goodwill Tour. This is in fact a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser, a somewhat larger and more powerful 3-seat version of the basic 2-seat Piper Cub. Could this fly across Latin America? Of course it could: in fact, in 1947, two PA-12s named City of Washington and City of Angels flew around the world, and the worst mechanical failure they suffered was a cracked tailwheel... (eBay purchase, Grelicks collection.) P.S. Spot the cat...

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March 1946 parade, Salonica, Greece. Photo taken by an American member of AMFOGE (see previous posts) and printed on Agfa Brovira paper by “PHOTO E. MELANIDIS, TSIMISKI STREET 30, SALONICA”. (off eBay purchase, Grelicks collection).

Of course, what I really like in this photo is the street vendor on the right, probably selling koulouria (κουλουρτζής / σιμιτζής), marching along the Navy band and looking straight at the photographer...

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“Mom, we took this photo on the ship, on our way to Santorini. There was a lot of wind, so it isn’t very good. But, since it shows the three of us together, I wanted you to have it. - M.”

I found this photo (late 1960s, I guess), along with a few others, while “exploring” an abandoned house in Emporio, Santorini, a few years back. I know urbex etiquette says that you shouldn’t take things. I know. But I couldn’t resist taking these family snapshots. There were some other things left in that house, a few petty coins from various countries - I didn’t touch anything. But the photos... I suppose M.’s mother lived there - and she had passed way. M., a young girl in the 1960s, is probably still around, living in Athens... Noone took care of that abandoned house - I suppose one day, if they want to renovate it, they’ll just throw all the old junk away. Maybe I am a thief. Maybe I’m a bad person. I don’t know. In my mind, I took away this half-dozen photos to preserve them. If one day I find this family, I’ll be glad to give those photos back.