Grandfathers photos - are they copies??

My grandfather left us a cigar box of photos from his time in Europe. many are of his buddies with names written on the back, but some are what I'd call "action" photos or destroyed buildings and other carnage. While spending time digging online for more information i have come across the exact same photos on other sites. some of these are individuals sites or written articles honoring their grandfather, and the EXACT same photos are posted there. by exact, i mean EXACT... same blurs, marks, scratches on the photos. So it got me thinking that maybe the men were given copies or had access to copies of photos that an army photographer would take?

Remember, I've very new at this and just beginning to learn about WW2....... I'd appreciate any enlightenment.

thank you

 

I never thought about it before, but you are probably correct. Dad was best friends with the photographer and preacher of his outfit...So I have a few nice pictures of The CBI Theater.

 

Several?many? copies can be made from a negative...the question is whos original photo?

 

Official army photographer (Signal Corps) photos are almost always high quality and don't have the issues you mentioned. Maybe your grandfather's unit assigned a member to take photos. Do you know what unit he was in? Many 'regular guys' took photos but the quality of many are not that good.
And, once photos have been posted online, it's easy to 'steal' them and use them on another page.

 

All the photos in this old cigar box look like typical personal photos. Most of them he wrote notes and names on the back. Of hundreds, I've found maybe 10 posted by others also and they are very easy to see that they are exactly the same photo. No one in our family has ever posted any of them online so they couldn't have been copied.

The idea that maybe the unit had a designated photographer and shared the results sounds possible.

He was in Battery A of the 575th anti aircraft artillery battalion that was attached to the 11th armored division of the 3rd army.