Three Photographs of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in the late-1940s

Guantanamo, Cuba: np, ca. late-1940s. Three silver gelatin prints. 3 ½ x 5 ¾ in. Very good. Item #10494

Collection of three mid-century photographs of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base by an unknown war photographer. The base, on the southern coast of Cuba, became infamous for illegal detentions during the so-called “Global War on Terror” and now for illegal detentions of immigrants detained by the US government.

The three images respectively capture sailors gathered around the base’s fleet canteen; the landscape of the spare and undeveloped naval base; and, a spacious view of the base’s firing ranges, documenting an earlier Guantanamo Bay base, before the building of major detention centers, and likely before the rise of the current Cuban government, which since 1959 has asserted that the base is illegal.  

These photographs document the early stages of a naval base that would later host the country’s most infamous detention center, synonymous with decades of human rights violations.

Price: $150.00