Yellow Peril – CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image

Until photographs were able to be developed with color, people often had to guess at the hues of depicted scenes, unless they were present at the time the picture was taken, or the colors were specifically noted on the back. Furthermore, as years pass and stories about the subjects of these images are lost, viewers become less able to tie together the picture before them and the rest of the world that they experience every day. Therefore, when I initially viewed this picture of The Yellow Peril from 1943, I knew nothing about it but that it was probably a yellow airplane. Then I got curious.

Why was it called The Yellow Peril? As the photograph is part of a collection from a Naval Flight School during World War II, I assumed that the men from the school had nicknamed it to give it a ferocious sounding moniker. When I put the name into a search engine online, the top result was a Wikipedia article about a late nineteenth century color metaphor for race, referring to Chinese immigrants, and later – during the time pictured in this photograph – associated with the Japanese. According to this article, the term also referred to the fear that East Asian societies would wipe out Western societies. This type of racism was not unusual, especially when at war with other countries. While Wikipedia is not the most academically accurate website, there is often quite a bit of truth in the articles located there, and I was disappointed to learn that this airplane was most likely named after a racist slur, contemporary though it may have been. Just in case I was wrong, however, I went back to the search results.

This time, I included the word "airplane" in my search. The Mid-Atlantic Air Museum's website has an article on the "Yellow Peril" as well. While the airplanes pictured on the webpage are slightly different models, they are pictured in their vivid yellow glory and I knew I had found a closer match. According to this site, "The name 'Yellow Peril' was not the official name of this aircraft but a generic name applied to several primary trainers including the Boeing/Stearman NS and N2S Kaydets. The name originated from the fact that all naval trainers had been painted orange-yellow since 1917 as well as from its use in Naval Aviation Reserve bases where prospective Aviation Cadets received their first training. In the event that a cadet failed to solo within a certain period of time, he was in 'Peril' of not being appointed an Aviation Cadet." While this photograph pictures an NP-1 Spartan Trainer, further color image searching of similar relics assured me that it too was painted yellow.

Upon completing my third and final search, I realized it would have been much simpler to just originally search for images of an NP-1 Spartan Trainer and determine if it had been yellow – but then I would not have learned about any of the other information. It was a strong reminder to never stop searching for answers, and never stop learning.

By Julia Thompson, Library Specialist, Western Illinois University

For more information about this and other CARLI Digital Collections, visit http://collections.carli.illinois.edu

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