DOW-UAP-D104, Final Personnel Record for Newhouse, Delbert C., U.S. Navy, 1957
WAR.gov / Department of War PURSUE Release 06
This file contains the final personnel record of U.S. Navy Chief Warrant Officer Delbert C.
Document Highlights
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Short overview
The closed U.S. Navy personnel record of Delbert C. Newhouse, a career naval photographer, runs to 585 pages of orders, fitness reports, leave reports and correspondence, from his enlistment in January 1933 to his transfer to the retired list on April 1, 1960. According to the official description, Newhouse is the man who shot the 16mm film near Tremonton, Utah, in July 1952 that Project Blue Book later investigated.
Why this is interesting
The file says nothing about the film or the sighting itself; its value is that it lets readers check the photographic experience that Blue Book investigators credited him with. It traces a specialist’s path: photographer striker in 1934, the Naval School of Photography at Pensacola in 1935, head of a photographic laboratory at Guantanamo Bay, temporary appointment as Photographer in June 1942, then photographic officer and photographic supply posts. In 1948–49 he served as Bureau of Aeronautics liaison officer to the Air Force’s Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for the procurement of photographic equipment, and afterwards headed the procurement branch of the Bureau’s Photographic Division. For the summer of 1952 the record places him at the Naval Supply Center in Oakland, California, and contains a leave report covering July 1 to 7, 1952 — the week of the filming. A 1957 entry shows him at the Naval Air Technical Training Unit in Pensacola, and fitness reports list his duty as training Navy photographers. The file belongs with the Tremonton records DOW-UAP-D098, DOW-UAP-D102, DOW-UAP-D103 and DOW-UAP-D105 and the footage DOW-UAP-PR159.
Selected passages
- “Lt. Newhouse has shown a superior grasp of photographic supply details, sound judgment, foresight, devotion to duty and thoroughness in his primary duty as photographic officer”
- “Training Navy aerial and ground photographers and photographic officers”
Background
This file contains the final personnel record of U.S. Navy Chief Warrant Officer Delbert C. Newhouse, who left naval service as a Chief Warrant Officer 4, then the highest Warrant Officer grade. In July 1952, Newhouse recorded 16mm motion-picture film near Tremonton, Utah; the film later became the subject of a Project Blue Book investigation. Project Blue Book was the U.S. Air Force program active from 1952 to 1969 that investigated the nature and origin of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). In addition to documenting routine assignments and training, the file records Newhouse’s career progression as a Photographer’s Mate, a Navy enlisted specialty responsible for photography and related imaging work. Project Blue Book investigators characterized Newhouse as an expert photographer based on his naval experience.