A large photograph album of Japanese origin and Korean War vintage, with the lacquered front cover extensively hand-decorated in colour

Maps of the four main islands of Japan and the Korean Peninsula are surrounded by borders of cherry blossom and bamboo, with scenes of Mt Fuji, a pagoda, and birds on the wing. Major cities are shown on the maps; Korea has Pyongyang, Seoul and Pusan, with '38° LINE' in a much larger font across the centre. The album (275 × 390 mm) contains three series of commercially produced small photographic views loosely inserted behind photo-corners (40 hand-coloured views of Japan; 56 black and white views of Tokyo; and 40 black and white views of the Kure-Hiro district), as well as 11 larger personal photographs of Bangkok. The last three items in the album are more significant: they are professionally produced photographs of two destroyers of the RAN - HMAS 'Anzac' (D59), and HMAS 'Warramunga' (D123) - and a large group portrait of three officers and twelve sailors of the 'Warramunga'. Both these ships served in the Korean War. The album and its contents appear to have been purchased by one of the crew members of the 'Warramunga' after she became one of the first Australian warships assigned to the Far East Strategic Reserve in 1955.