Around the time of the rally, junior officers gather in a comfortable home for a jovial and friendly meal. The meal is being hosted in the home of the young woman standing in a dress against the back wall in both images--as evidenced by the photo portrait of her on the wall. She is either the wife in the home, or a trusted older daughter.
In the lower image, Eugene Wozniak is seated at the far left. That he--as a foreigner--is welcome and invited to this kind of intimate event is a testament not only of the graciousness of the Chinese people he worked with, but also to own his friendliness, flexibility, and efforts to reach across cultural boundaries. Wozniak is not a unfamiliar intruder however, as at least one image that he has taken is thumb-tacked on the wall in house, showing that he has an established relationship of some kind.
The person immediately to the left of Wozniak is an interpretation or translation officer--someone assigned to help key Americans negotiate linguistic and cultural needs in the CBI. His dark colored uniform is neither a Chinese soldier's or officer's uniform, nor an average military American uniform. This style of uniform can be better seen here.
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This image subset contains images of an apparent rally of the Nationalist 48th Army Division (陆军第四十八师) that happened in SW China during WWII, with speeches, parades, group oaths, patriotic slogan practice, singing, and martial competitions with awards, and a final banquet.
Several images show Zheng Tingji (郑庭笈) as commander of the 48th Army Division (陆军第四十八师 ), and he held that post from January 1944, to May 1945 (1944年1月任第48师师长，1945年5月任云南昆明机场守备司令), so the images are from that timeframe.
Based on some of the KMT officials in some of the images, and the terrain recorded in the images, this rally was probably in Fohai county (佛海县), in far SW Yunnan province, adjacent to Burma.
Location Tags
Around the time of the rally, junior officers gather in a comfortable home for a jovial and friendly meal. The meal is being hosted in the home of the young woman standing in a dress against the back wall in both images--as evidenced by the photo portrait of her on the wall. She is either the wife in the home, or a trusted older daughter.
In the lower image, Eugene Wozniak is seated at the far left. That he--as a foreigner--is welcome and invited to this kind of intimate event is a testament not only of the graciousness of the Chinese people he worked with, but also to own his friendliness, flexibility, and efforts to reach across cultural boundaries. Wozniak is not a unfamiliar intruder however, as at least one image that he has taken is thumb-tacked on the wall in house, showing that he has an established relationship of some kind.
The person immediately to the left of Wozniak is an interpretation or translation officer--someone assigned to help key Americans negotiate linguistic and cultural needs in the CBI. His dark colored uniform is neither a Chinese soldier's or officer's uniform, nor an average military American uniform. This style of uniform can be better seen here.