Still Pictures Aerial Photography in Record Group 428: General Records of the Department of the Navy
General Black-and-White Photographic File of the Department of Navy, 1958 - 1981 (428-N)
Record Group 428, Series N consists of approximately 238,000 black-and-white negatives, with original negatives, Navy-generated copy negatives, and scattered National Archives-generated copy negatives interfiled. Formats vary considerably (see below), though by the mid-1970's, the most common entries are 35 mm. negatives placed in slide mounts. For the majority of the series negatives, numbering simply continues forward from the #1,030,000 range where the previously-accessioned blocs of black-and-white negatives roughly leave off. (The largely pre-World War II-to-August 1945 and largely August1945-to-1957 blocs had been sent to the National Archives in 1961 and 1968; see the description for Record Group 80, Series G.) Principal exception to this pattern, in Record Group 428, Series N, is a group of approximately 50,000 negatives that bear much lower numbers (chiefly #800,100 through #850,027), from a numbering sector left vacant by the NPC in earlier years. Approximately 21,000 of these items are 1960's-70's official portrait views that arrived with the higher-number items in 1990. Many of the remainder are images pertaining to the Navy's annual versions of "Operation Deepfreeze" in Antarctica, including numerous views from 1955 through the early 1960's that were transferred to the National Archives well before 1990 and were originally considered part of Record Group 80, Series G. Record Group 428, Series GX and GXA are both unified vis-aid indexes covering Series N black-and-white negatives as well as Series K and KN color negatives, slides, and transparencies. This series is partially digitized.
General Color Photographic File of the Department of Navy, 1958 - 1981 (428-K)
Spanning approximately 108,500 images, Record Group 428, Series K contains at least an original color slide or transparency for each item number; while the format varies, 2" X 2" slides are the most common entries. For nearly 40% of the images, there is also available -- in the same jacket or an accompanying jacket -- a Navy or National Archives-generated negative, color and/or black-and-white. Record Group 428, Series GX and GXA are both unified vis-aid indexes covering Series N black-and-white negatives as well as Series K and KN color negatives, slides, and transparencies. This series is partially digitized.
General Color Photographic File of the Department of Navy, 1958 - 1981 (428-KN)
While Record Group 428, Series KN represents the color file initiated in June 1958 to house newly-arriving negatives (see the separate series description), Series K is the slide and transparency-oriented file whose numbers continue the sequence from the original World War II-to-1957 color series that had been transferred to the National Archives in 1968 (see Record Group 80, Series GK). Spanning approximately 108,500 images, Record Group 428, Series K contains at least an original color slide or transparency for each item number; while the format varies, 2" X 2" slides are the most common entries. Record Group 428, Series GX and GXA are both unified vis-aid indexes covering Series N black-and-white negatives as well as Series K and KN color negatives, slides, and transparencies. This series is partially digitized.
Moffett Field Naval Air Station General Photograph Files, ca. 1963 - 1991 (428-MP)
This series consists of photograph files maintained in the photography laboratory at the Naval Air Station (NAS) Moffett Field in California. The photographs, taken by members of the Fleet Imaging Command, Pacific and its predecessors, provide a pictorial history of Moffett Field. Included are aerial views of Moffett Field; photographs documenting construction projects at the facility; and a panoramic photograph showing the first landing of the Navy airship USS Macon at Moffett Field in 1933 (428-MP-578).
Vis-Aid Index to the General Photographic Files of the Department of the Navy, 1958 - 1981 (428-GX)
At the core of the central file are the multitudinous views, taken from a variety of aerial, shipboard, and shore vantage points, of interior and exterior features of more than 2,500 Navy vessels. Types range from elite aircraft carriers, guided missile cruisers, guided missile frigates, destroyers, battleships, and submarines, to lower-profile cargo ships, ammunition ships, hospital ships, surveying ships, minesweepers, icebreakers, oilers, and escorts.
