Originally published in January of 2010″

In the two photos below, photographer Fritz Kaeser captured this Mobile Orientation Unit presentation on June 28, 1945, near Cividale, Italy (at least that’s the assumption as Cividale is scribbled on the back).  I did a search on “Mobile Orientation Units”, but didn’t have any success learning more about them.  Fritz ran a studio in Wisconsin before World War II and then headed to the Western U.S. after the war, photographing the American Southwest and the Rocky Mountains.  These photographs are a part of Denver Library’s Western History Collection.

This photo shows the Tenth Mountain Division Information and Education’s Mobile Orientation Unit’s jeep-top stage parked in the middle of a grassy field during a discussion of the Pacific campaign. Pfc. Bob Wright (left) and Sergeant Ed Curry sit at tables atop the stage. Behind them is a banner with a map of Japan and the slogan: One war, one world. A jeep trailer contains a sound system and two loudspeakers, a third loud speaker is on the other side of the stage.  http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00200148+TMD-148

In the photo below, the Tenth Mountain Division Information and Education’s Mobile Orientation Unit holds a discussion of the Pacific campaign and invasion of Japan with soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division’s Quartermaster Battalion. T/4 Theodore “Ted” Lockwood uses a portable microphone amid the audience. http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00200149+TMD-149