Scope and Contents: The Thomas W. Shepard Collection contains eight photographic prints taken during Shepard’s service as a volunteer ambulance driver with the American Field Service (AFS) in Burma in 1945. Within the collection are seven unlabeled 3.25” x 4.5” black and white prints and one 3.5” x 2.5” black and white print with an inscription and date on the reverse. Although the majority of the images are uncaptioned and undated, Shepard provided detailed notes about each picture in a letter when he donated the collection to AFS in 1997. The letter is not included in the collection, but the notes are transcribed on the folders containing each image. Clarification or questions of spelling or words are given in brackets by the AFS Archives staff.
The images depict the evacuation of native Burmese people, AFS drivers and Indian soldiers escaping Japanese fire, AFS drivers adopting traditional Indian modes of eating and siting, and AFS drivers coping with the difficult Burmese terrain. Within the images Shepard identifies Major Shah Gardezi and AFS driver Thomas S. McPheeters, Jr. There is also one photograph of Shepard parked in front of a Buddhist temple in a nearly deserted Mandalay.
All eight photographs were digitized by AFS Archives staff in 2016 and are available as high-resolution TIF, high-resolution JPEG, and low-resolution JPEG files. One verso (with notes) was scanned, and is also available as a high-resolution TIF, high-resolution JPEG, and low-resolution JPEG file.
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