I was actually looking at their cheeks, chins and necks. Bartolo Colon notwithstanding, today’s baseball players tend to be a little thinner than those guys.
Man… Colon is some kind of specimen, huh? He looks like he ought to be the team cook or something.
Wow. I AM old (57) and basically, I’ve been looking at photos of WWII since I was knee-high to a grasshopper (now just THAT expression dates me) but to me, out of the men in your crew photo (helluva photo!!) only about two in ten men looking any younger than 25, and among those, not one that I would deem to be less than 20.
I can kind of accept the “worked had at manual labor” explanation, but I’ll bet it’s a bit psychological—face it, most of those men, if in any combat zone (even—or should I say especially—airmen) would most probably have been in some doubt about themselves actually coming through the war, which to them might have meant another ten years.
So I guess that puts an expression on your face that just RADIATES fear—on the page with my dad’s crewmates, the only photo in which they look even remotely young is when they’re smiling.
As for my dad in later years, I’ll just have to say that he was one of the most equanimous, pleasant, smart individuals I’ve ever known, with not even a tiny shadow of what must have been the result of 20+ missions over Europe.
And I’m not just saying that just because he was my dad! 
In my grandfather’s case, his squadron photo (549th of 385th bomb group flying B-17s out of Great Ashfield), was taken at the hairiest part of the air war over Germany; sometime between early September 1943 and Dec 31, 1943, so I imagine you’re definitely right as far as the facial expressions go.
But overall, wartime photos notwithstanding, I’m pretty sure that it’s mostly facial expressions. Look atthis photo of today’s Rangers, and they look old, yet most of those guys are like E-4 - E6 (with the exception of the Colonel in front), which would probably imply mid-20s, yet there’s not much difference between those guys and the likely mid-late 40s colonel standing leftmost in the shot.
Just having seven kids by age 32 takes a toll on girl.
War is Hell, and they were just coming out of the Great Depression. I would chalk that up as a more significant factor than clothing and hairstyles. Young folks during the Roaring Twenties look their age in pictures.
Gotta say “me too” on this.
For another submission in the WWII photos examples, here’s my dad at 23 and then at 24. In the 15 months between the two shots, he had shipped out to New Guinea, flew 98 combat missions, got malaria and dysentery. It may be just me, but I think the in the 24 shot he looks quite a bit older than one more year.
When most of these soldiers were born, the expected life expectancy of the average American was 55; today its close to 79.
Do some math, and a 21 year old man at the time would look like he was in his early 30s to us; a 30 year old man would look 45. Add a little black and white and like the posters said short hair cuts, and that adds to the effect.
This helps explain why so many old-timey ballplayers looked like middle aged men even if they were by todays standards young men----by the standards of their day, many of them were middle aged men.
That is a dramatic change.
This is so wrong. First, the lower life expectancy was largely due to higher infant mortality; if lots of babies die before one year of age, it brings down the average. Second, adults who died prematurely didn’t die of old age, they died of infections or other illnesses that are routinely treated today. They didn’t just age faster and die as old men at age 55.
Leo Jones looks very babyfaced, to me (fifth photo down).
Also I was interested to see Combe House, in the second photo down. That is a very nice hotel these days (although sadly has just changed hands so may not be as nice soon).
That’s kind of what cracked me up about the Captain America movie - you didn’t need a ginormous roided up Chris Evans to be the Aryan Superman of WWII GIs. Sebastian Stan was probably plenty big and healthy looking in comparison to the guys walking in.
And yet, somehow, the vast majority of them lived into the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
By your logic, a 2 year old back then would look like a 3 year old, which is absurd.
Yep. Smoked like chimneys and no sunscreen. My Dad started during the war, just like many young men, free cigs.
Yes, they did.
Did they?
The advanced aging kicked in once they reached adulthood.
Yes, Leo Jones DOES seem baby-faced. But it seems he died of some horrific cancer at a relatively early age. Funny, my dad never spoke about him. I only found out about him after I attended a convention of the 467th Bomb Group (on behalf of my father. It was totally surreal being surrounded by all these old men who had all been contemporaries of my father!)
Combe House . . . you must be in England. Again, my father never mentioned any “flak-happy rest homes.” I guess he never GOT flak-happy. He never referred to his time in the war as anything other than amusing anecdotes—never a “I was terrified”-type of story. Although he must have been. Who couldn’t have been, with an up-to 1/3rd attrition rate?
Watching “The War” by Ken Burns made me want to post something entitled “Why I Can’t Feel Sorry For Germans in WWII” but I think I’ll leave that to another time.
This. Many men smoked like chimneys and it beats the living crap out of your face. Regular smokers often have faces that look 10 years older than non smokers the same age.
Well, yeah.
Assuming someone was in their 20s when the war ended, they could expect to live somewhere around 70 years old, which would put them in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
Maybe because they were exhausted a lot more?
So it’s not at all feasible that compared to today, lower health care standards, more disease, less nutritional info, less government assistance, harsher working conditions. Etc etc could cause many people from this era to age faster than if they were the same age today?
