Comprises a photograph album of approximately 140 black-and-white images on 30 pages, all dated and captioned by Edmund Bell. The album is housed in a bespoke solander box by Stephen Conway, inlaid with the crest of the Gold Coast Colony. The images relate to Bell's time as a Navigation Officer in Transport Command stationed at Accra (Headquarters No 114 Wing, Royal Air Force) in the Gold Coast [Ghana]. The images depict Bell's journeys from Accra from to Karachi, Cairo, Sudan, Trinidad and further afield, with scenes of everyday life in Accra and environs, and aerial photographs of airfields taken whilst navigating Dakotas on operational duties (Cairo, Apapa-Lagos, Rabat-Salé, Waterloo-Freetown, Yumdum-Bathurst, Wadi Seidna North-Khartoum, Kano South, Port Etienne, Lomé, Robertsfield off Cape Palmas, Komenda, Agidir and Luxor). In April 1944, Bell flew a record 3,193 miles in two days of daylight flying, transporting members of the Commission on Higher Education to investigate establishing Universities in West Africa (among the passengers were Col. Walter Elliott, Prof. Sir Julian Huxley, Sir Geoffrey Evans and Arthur Creech-Jones.
An envelope pasted to rear of album contains postcards, mostly of the Sudan, and other memorabilia. Alongside the album are copies of extracts from Bell's wartime diaries covering this period and a supplementary background document titled, 'Big Things Ahead: a wartime navigator's diaries.'