:: I certainly can tag it both ways.  The images are very probably PD; I can't prove it without contacting the author of the webbed article from which they were copied, but common sense says that they were published pre-War, and that if the photographers weren't dead by the time the War broke out they probably died shortly after.  But just in case they're not PD, I wrote an alternative fair-use rationale.  You ignored that, and so I'm shocked and ask WTF that's about.  Whether they're PD or fair use, they definitely belong on the project and should not have been deleted, so I'm asking you nicely to correct your mistake.