Dating to WWII, this silent footage shows one (or possibly more) baseball games at Tyndall Field in Panama City, Florida, followed (5:29) by footage of a trick pool shooting demonstration. It’s not known what year this was shot; the 1943 and 1944 Tyndall Field Tornadoes had four players who ended up in the minor leagues after the war. It’s not clear who the opponent is in the games shown, but the jersey of the opposing player seen at 1:27 appears to say “Bronson”. This very well could be the Bronson Field baseball team — the Bronson Bombers — from Pensacola. During 1943, none other than Ted Williams played baseball for the team; at the time he was training to become a fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Later In 1944, Williams served as an instructor with the United States Marine Corps Reserve at Bronson Field. The base team, won the Training Command championship that year.

The identity of the exceptional pool player is not known. It might be William “Willie” Joseph Mosconi, who was a professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and one of the best of his day.

Motion picture films don’t last forever; many have already been lost or destroyed. For almost two decades, we’ve worked to collect, scan and preserve the world as it was captured on 35mm, 16mm and 8mm movies — including home movies, industrial films, and other non-fiction. If you have endangered films you’d like to have scanned, or wish to donate celluloid to Periscope Film so that we can share them with the world, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us via the weblink below.

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com