A 5.5x3.5" vintage half tone photo postcard from a large collection of postcards brought back from WW1 by a Pvt John F Farrell of Battery B, 11th Field Artillery.

Photo Overview

This WW1-era postcard shows the Headquarters Depot Brigade building at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, circa 1917-1918. A large, wood-frame military structure sits elevated on a berm reinforced with rows of sandbags, with a broad staircase leading to the entrance. A dozen or more U.S. Army soldiers in campaign hats and uniforms mill about the road in front of the building. A megaphone or bugle horn is mounted on a pole near the top of the stairs. Notably, the word "CENSORED" is stamped in the lower right corner of the image -- a reminder that all camp photography was subject to military review during wartime.

This postcard comes from a collection brought back from World War 1 by Pvt. John F. Farrell of Battery B, 11th Field Artillery -- a soldier who served at Camp Devens before deploying overseas. It is a rare, first-hand artifact of American home-front military life during the Great War.

Historical Notes

Camp Devens (later Fort Devens) was established in 1917 in Ayer, Massachusetts, as one of the major mobilization and training camps for the American Expeditionary Forces. It was home to the 76th Division and numerous other units. The Depot Brigade seen here was the camp's reception and processing unit, inducting and training tens of thousands of soldiers before they shipped out to the Western Front.

Tragically, Camp Devens became the epicenter of one of the first major outbreaks of the catastrophic 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic in the United States. In September 1918, hundreds of soldiers fell ill daily, and the camp's medical facilities were overwhelmed. The outbreak at Devens is believed to have seeded the broader pandemic that killed tens of millions worldwide.

Pvt. John F. Farrell's unit, the 11th Field Artillery, was part of the 2nd Division, one of the most decorated American divisions of the war. The 2nd Division fought in major engagements including Belleau Wood, Soissons, and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Battery B soldiers like Farrell endured intense combat on the Western Front before the Armistice in November 1918.

Camp Devens was redesignated as Fort Devens after the war and continued as an active military installation through the Cold War era before converting to Devens, a civilian community and reserve training center, in the 1990s.

Text Present

Front of card, bottom caption: HEADQUARTERS DEPOT BRIGADE, CAMP DEVENS, MASS.
Front of card, lower right corner: CENSORED

Back of card, upper left: THIS SPACE FOR WRITING MESSAGES
Back of card, center top: PostCard
Back of card, center: THIS SPACE FOR ADDRESS ONLY
Back of card, upper right box: PLACE STAMP HERE

Print analysis

This is a halftone photographic postcard from the WW1 era, approximately 1917-1918. Examining the image closely reveals the dot pattern characteristic of halftone printing rather than a continuous-tone photographic process. The divided-back format with "This Space for Writing Messages" and "This Space for Address Only" is consistent with postcards produced between 1907 and the early 1920s. This is a Type 1 period-issue item, produced close to the time the photograph was taken.

Condition

Please see scans of the image we have provided for the most accurate and complete state of the postcard.