HISTORY OF WAR IN PICTURES

WARSAW UPRISING 1944: 63 DAYS OF HOPE AND HELL

2014-07-31T23:00:00.000-07:00

August 1, 2014 is the 70th Anniversary of the fateful Warsaw Uprising. It was one of the most ferocious, most tragic battles of World War Two. After all these decades, the events of the Warsaw Uprising still remain the least known and often misunderstood.

The two largest allies, Britain and the United States played a devious game of bait and switch, promising to provide Poland with much needed military assistance and war materiel, and ultimately abandoning her to fight the Nazi Germans all alone. At the crux of this conspiracy was Russia, whose alliance with the West was hinged on the condition that Churchill and Roosevelt would sacrifice Poland, and other eastern European nations into Stalins' hands.

The Polish Army, the Polish Underground, and civilian men, women and even children, took up arms, and used makeshift weapons to fight against the overpowering Nazi German onslaught. Though the Americans air dropped much needed supplies over Warsaw, it was too little too late. The city was engulfed in flames. The Germany army re-captured many of the districts taken by the Polish insurgents, so that the air drops meant for the Poles, drifted into German held areas. The Polish insurgents, in a desperate attempt to escape annihilation, fled underground, through the city sewer systems.

The Polish Underground was the largest of its kind in Nazi-occupied Europe. But despite the courage of the Polish people, the Uprising ended tragically. After 63 hellish days, Warsaw capitulated. Over 16,000 Polish Resistance fighters were killed, 6,000 WIA, and up to 200,000 Polish civilians died horrible deaths. The remaining Polish insurgents were rounded up and marched into captivity. Then, the Nazi Germans razed Warsaw to the ground, bombing and burning it into a mass of rubble and ashes.

This special blog post commemorates the Polish men, women, and children who fought with such courage and strength to free their beloved homeland Poland. They will never, never, never be forgotten!!

GO PASSERBY! AND TELL THE WORLD!

August 5, 1944 Battalion Zośka soldiers in Gęsiówka. (R) Tadeusz Milewski aka Ćwik" – killed on the same day. (L) Wojciech Omyła aka "Wojtek" killed several days later.

Polish Flag on Barricade - Warsaw Uprising

A Home Army division and the workers from the power station attacked the German crew on August 1 at 5:00 p m (known as the ‘W’ hour). The main building was captured very quickly, and the whole power station was overtaken by insurgents the next afternoon, supplying electricity to Warsaw for as long as Powisle was in Polish hands. I could finally see the situation in Srodmiescie. Successful combatants had started in Napoleon Square, where a company of the ‘Kilinski’ battalion had captured the Prudential high-rise building. The next aim of the attackers was the Main Post Office building. During the night of August 1, the bunker in the post office building was destroyed. The next morning, one German tank coming as reinforcements was destroyed by Molotov cocktails, and a second one withdrew. The struggle lasted the entire day. The offensive was successful, and on August 2, about 5:00 pm, a red-and-white flag was mounted on the captured main post office building. It remained there until the end of the Uprising. W Hour

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/kris_braun2.htm

Polish Soldiers Preparing For Action August 1, 1944

Jerzy Tyczyński aka "Jur" from Koszta company - Warsaw Uprising 1944

The first days of the Uprising were successful, and we were given hope.
Free Warsaw! We are free! We will defend freedom to the end.

Sylvester Braun Kris

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/kris_braun2.htm

On August 1, 1944, at about 5:00 pm, I heard machine guns and grenades exploding. From my balcony at 28 Kopernika Street, I saw the attack on the [Warsaw] University. The boys positioned themselves along the street; the girls were delivering weapons and ammunition. They started shooting at German positions. The Germans responded with a barrage of heavy machine gun fire along Kopernika Street to Tamka Street. The street was blocked with fire from the university. The surprise attack failed; we sustained losses. Night came—a night of anxiety and uncertainty. The cannonade could be heard throughout the night. German tanks were driving along Nowy Swiat Street, but did not enter the side streets.

W Hour (written by Sylvester Braun "Kris" prolific photographer-writer)

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/kris_braun2.htm

Home Army 26th Infantry Regiment on their way to Kielce-Radom

to join Warsaw Uprising 1944

Maria Sielenska, aka "Mery" positioned behind barricade

on Bracka Street-Warsaw Uprising 1944

Nazi German Killing Squad " The Dirlewanger Gang"

Massacre of Polish Civilians by Nazi Germans

On August 5, 1944, at Warsaw at about 4 or 5 p.m., the houses Nos. 105,107, 109, Wolska Street immediately behind the railway bridge, the so-called Hankiewicz houses, were suddenly surrounded from all sides by Germans, who threw hand-grenades and set them on fire by means of some white powder, which they carried in bags. There were many inhabitants there and lots of people had come here from town. No order to leave the houses was given. After the Germans had surrounded them no one left them: everyone was burnt alive or else killed by hand-grenades. No one could escape. Only those were saved who had left the houses at some earlier hour. It was said that the Germans burnt all the houses in which insurgents had stayed. In the Hankiewicz houses some 2,000 people or perhaps even more found their death. Record no. 59 How Wola citizens were murdered.

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/atrocities4.htm

Massacre of Polish Civilians by Nazi Germans

Polish Insurgents facing execution by Nazi Germans firing squad

Nazi Germans Bomb Warsaw

They (Nazis Germans) launched both explosive and incendiary missiles. Shortly, there was a thunderous explosion as the rocket struck the building in which our company quarters were located. I watched the building fall apart. Then another one hit the upper floors of the skyscraper, igniting a conflagration. I turned around seeking my buddy, who approached me slowly, pale from fright and unable to speak. Trying to hide my own terror, I smiled nonchalantly at him asking “What's with you, control yourself and give me a candy." Which he did. Zdzislaw Jarkiewicz "Longin" Gustaw-Hamas Battalion. Soldiers Day in Grazyna Company, Collected and edited by Stanley L. Karp Jr.

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/jarkiewicz.htm

Polish Insurgents captured this Nazi German tank. It was a Sd.Kfz. 251 of the 5th SS Panzer Division. The Polish Regiment, 8-th "Krybar" captured it on August 14, 1944 and used it for the attack on Warsaw University. The soldier with the MP40 was Commander Adam Dewicz, aka Gray Wolf. In fact they named the tank "Gray Wolf"

Polish Insurgents use Nazi German Tank as a Barricade

Soldiers of the Old Town—the bravest groups of insurgents—together with groups of civilian citizens got through the sewers to City Centre. The manhole to the underground labyrinth was on Dluga Street in Krasinskich square. They were relieved to find the exit at the junction of Nowy Swiat and Warecka Streets. The distance was about 2 kilometers [1.24 mi]. The people seemed to walk for an eternity. The fate of those who were cut off from the exit was tragic. Only a small group of the insurgents from the ‘Zoska’ battalion succeeded in getting through the enemy lines.

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/kris_braun5.htm

Young Polish fighter armed with famous Polish Blyskawica

I was 16 at the time and had been in the conspiracy, so to say, for some time. The Germans having closed all the high schools, I participated in classes that met secretly in private homes in groups numbering less than 12. One knew one's fellow students only by their cryptonyms and one did not ask them where they lived. Being part of the secret Polish underground organization could be exciting. Thus, at night, it was my task and that of youngsters like me, to paint the Home Army's symbol – an anchor made of the letters P and W, which stood for Polska Walcząca, or 'Poland in Arms' [Fighting Poland] – on highly visible structures. It used to drive the Germans crazy. They would post sentries at monuments and such to prevent the appearance of these symbols, and yet in spite of this, we would manage to post them there under their very noses.

In the Underground Witold Gorski

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/gorski1.htm

Armed Polish Insurgents

Polish Insurgents with anti-aircraft artillery

Polish Scouts deliver newspapers in the cross-fire

For five years the AK fought the Germans from under cover at every turn: by blowing up their facilities, smuggling intelligence to the Allies, rescuing Jews, printing newspapers, maintaining an underground government, conducting schools for our children – taking every opportunity to resist the occupation at great cost of Polish life and limb. On the first of August 1944 our underground forces, amassed in Warsaw, though vastly outnumbered rose up against the German Army in open conflict. We had high hopes that with promised Allied support we would rid our capitol and our country of the hated Nazis oppressors.

Zdzislaw Jarkiewicz "Longin" Gustaw-Hamas Battalion.

Soldiers Day in Grazyna Company, Collected and edited by Stanley L. Karp Jr.

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/jarkiewicz.htm

The Germans most likely got lost. They were spotted by wounded in the insurgents hospital on Konopczynski Street as well as by people in apartments whose windows overlooked Na Skarpie Boulevard. They sounded the alarm. Whoever could rushed to the windows and started shooting. The falling rounds were mostly from pistols. The Germans, in a panic, rushed to escape, leaving their armored car behind. Capture of Armored Car

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/kris_braun3.htm

Polish Insurgents Capture Yet Another Nazi German Tank

I'm sure that not one of us even for a moment imagined this Battle of Warsaw would last 63 days – more than two months of heroism, agony and death. Flt. Lt. J. Glebocki, Polish Air Force Reprinted from Destiny Can Wait. William Heinemann Ltd., 1949.

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/glebocki.htm

Polish Sniper- Warsaw Uprising 1944

Polish Snipers - Warsaw Uprising 1944

Polish Insurgents Captured another Nazi German tank

Armed Polish Insurgent

Young Scout helping Polish insurgents

Polish Women faced constant danger working as couriers

Polish Home Army Captured 150 Nazi German Soldiers

Some of the 150 Nazi Germans captured by Polish Home Army

Polish soldier captures the Mother-Lode of German weaponry

Polish Sniper - Warsaw Uprising 1944

Polish Soldiers from Kampino Regiment inspect captured German weapons

Polish Insurgents

Polish Insurgent poses in front of captured Nazi German tank

Young Polish Scouts serve as mail couriers

(Far right:Tadeusz Rajszczak aka "Maszynka" with two other young soldiers

from Batalion Miotła, September 2, 1944 Warsaw

Soldiers from of Kedyw on Stawki Street in Wola district

Our spirits were not very high; the expected help from the West never arrived, although a properly trained Polish Parachute Brigade existed in England. The Soviet army’s advance westwards was stalled on the right bank of the Vistula. Then on September 18, belated help arrived in form of a huge air drop. Over one hundred American Flying Fortresses B-17s dropped 1,280 containers, but only 390 landed in the districts of Warsaw still in the insurgents’ hands. By mid-September, via Polish Red Cross, negotiations began with Germans to end the Uprising. The final agreement recognizing Polish soldiers as combatants was signed on October 2. Knowing of the surrender, we started getting rid of German uniforms, helmets, and machine guns. ( Zdzisław Szeliski ‘Zdziś’, soldier of the Home Army (AK) fought with battalion Gustaw, company Anna, in Wola, Old Town and City Centre districts. As POW, imprisoned in stalag XI-B Fallingbostel. After WWII emigrated to Canada) http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/szeliski.htm

Warsaw Streets everywhere were lined with graves - and flowers

The priest spoke of suffering, sacrifice and of the dead, and told us we must make our, peace with God, for none of us know what is in store. The men listened attentively. Then the priest said a prayer for the dead, the men knelt and repeated the words after him. He gave them his blessing and gave general absolution. The men rose. There were no tears. Each man stared in front of him, his face set and hard. The priest intoned the words of a hymn: “Land of our fathers …” Four hundred voices caught up the words and continued. The singing was like a challenge. Defeated men could not have sung like this. Waclaw Zagorski 'Lech', Chrobry II Battalion. Seventy Days. courtesy of Frederick Muller Ltd. London 1957. http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/zagorski3.htm

Polish Soldiers of the Miotla Battalion Radoslaw Warsaw Uprising 1944

Death is all around me, our closest ones are departing for ever, and I am still alive........ It is a very strenuous journey. Half-way through we pass a dam in the sewer with some disgusting liquid flowing down in streams. I am all soaked with a sticky, stinky greasy substance. With great effort, the healthier ones drag the wounded forward. They are loosing strength, some of them shout that they want to stay in the sewer. We cannot leave them. But we leave anything else we have, backpacks first, then blankets, camouflage jackets and spare shoes. Lidia Markiewicz Ziental "Lidka" was a paramedic Lidia Markiewicz-Ziental 'Lidka' a paramedic with 'Giewont' company of 'Zoska' battalion. She fought in the Wola, Old Town, Czerniakow and Mokotow districts. Translation: Seweryn Makosa. http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/markiewicz.htm

Nazi German tank in Stare Miasto, Warsaw on the attack, Warsaw Uprising

Polish citizens of Warsaw collect precious water - Warsaw Uprising 1944

Polish children orphans - Warsaw Uprising

From Chlodna Street onwards we were awe-struck by the incredible destruction. To the right every house had been burnt; to, the left they were burning like gigantic torches. It sometimes seemed as though it was one great wall of fire. Our personal experiences, driven as we were like cattle, haunted by fear, facing endless danger from the continuous shooting among the ruins, and the huge fires — took on terrible unearthly dimensions.

Record no. 1 evacuation of inhabitants

http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/atrocities6.htm

I went out to look. There, straight ahead to the north and very high up, I saw aircraft coming over. They looked like silver birds in a blue sky lightly scattered with little clouds. I counted twelve of them, then more and more, until I lost count. The roar of their engines grew, for they were coming straight towards us. Someone was counting them aloud, “ 102, 103, 104…” looked through my binoculars. They weren't German or Soviet. Then someone shouted: “They're Liberators! And they're ours!” Everyone ran out into the street, and scrambled up on the rubble to try to get a better look. I didn't know where they'd all sprung from. It was as though the dead had arisen from their graves. Allied Airdrop Waclaw Zagorski 'Lech', Chrobry II Battalion. Seventy Days. Courtesy of Frederick Muller Ltd. London 1957. http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/zagorski2.htm

Polish Insurgent is captured by Nazi Germans as soon as he emerged from sewers

At first we had to proceed on all fours, but then we were able to stand erect. It was the latter part of September and the waste water flowing through the sewers was cold. In some places the Germans had managed to dam the flow of the water with ready-made barriers which we had to breach and allow the water to ebb before being able to proceed. At such times the water reached to our chins. We had to observe strict silence and could hear Germans shouting through manholes suggesting we come up and surrender, but, I learned later that those who did were promptly shot Karol Tomaszewski "Mir" Baszta Battalion http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/tomaszewski.htm

General Tadeusz "Bor" Komorowski (2nd from left)

Poland signs capitulation

Poland Surrenders October 5, 1944 Combattants are evacuated from Warsaw

Before the uprising, the communist controlled radio was urging people of Warsaw to rise and defeat the occupier together with the advancing Soviet Army. By middle of September, the Russian Army was in full control of the right bank of the Vistula River. However, on Stalin’s orders right from the start of the uprising, no help was to be given to our units. Only toward the end of September when it was known that the end of the uprising was near, and in order to prolong our resistance, the Soviets finally started dropping (without parachutes) some foodstuff and small-caliber weapons. Because of our hopeless military situation and utterly deplorable conditions of the civilian population, and after we were granted

combatant rights, on October 2nd, we surrendered.

Kazimierz Wojcik 'Krzysztof', Baszta and Golski Battalions.Warsaw Uprising Reminiscence http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/wojcik.htm

Destruction of Warsaw (photographed January 1945)

SOLDIERS: FACES OF WAR

2012-05-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

"DUTY, HONOUR, COUNTRY" has been a solemn and universal affirmation among soldiers throughout history. It is not merely a call to arms but a fervent belief that the fundamental values of life, liberty and justice are worth fighting for. Though we enjoy our freedom we tend to overlook the enormous cost that was paid to secure that freedom. We owe a great debt of gratitude to our soldiers past and present who have paid the price with their lives.

What we know of history has been confirmed by the victors - the generals and the politicians who give only their perspective. The stories told by soldiers are rarely heard but are among the most poignant and compelling witnesses of life and death. Their revelations are terrifying, violent and filled with doom. Yet beneath the war-hardened exterior there lies a glimmer of faith and hope for a better world.

The following are among the most striking and unforgettable photographs taken of soldiers in World War 1 and World War 2. This is intended to be an unbiased documentation of soldiers from both the Allied and Axis forces, containing brief excerpts and quotations about war and their personal experiences. But it is their faces which tell the stories that words cannot adequately express.

James Blake Miller USMC Iraq War (2002-2004)

Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace. Ulysses S. Grant

WW2 Soldier Courage in the face of fear

War is hell. William Tecumseh Sherman

Salvation Army worker writes letter for wounded soldier WWII

No one ever goes into battle thinking God is on the other side.

Terry Goodkind

World War One - Soldiers in the Trenches

"Our trenches were shortly filled with them crowding in from out left. They were mostly blind and choking to death, and as fast as they died were just heaved behind the trench." Canadian Lieutenant Colonel Ian Sinclair

source: http://www.cbc.ca/history/EPISCONTENTSE1EP12CH1PA1LE.html

Dawn of Chemical Warfare (re: chlorine gas attack on April 22, 1915)

WW2 British Soldiers of 5th Battalion-Coldstream Guards- French town of Arras- early September 1944

"They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind." British Air Marshal "Bomber" Harris

WW2 Italian Side Gunner Inner view of Italian bomber Savoia-Marchetti S-79_Sparviero

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living. General Omar Bradley

WW2 Polish Troops firing at German plane September 1st 1939 early morning

"We got the order and we started to fight back. The cruiser then sailed into the channel and started to fire shell after shell at us. I saw huge trees being snapped in two.".....The Germans saw that their attacks weren't working so they used flame-throwers to try and overcome us with flames. By the sixth day we were barely managing to survive because we were cold, hungry, dirty, and we hadn't slept. We were struggling, Ignacy Skowron

Source: ("Watching the Start of WW2 / BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8225093.stm

WW2 Canadian commander 8th Princess Louise's New Brunswick Hussars-Sherman tank- giving orders to his gunner during firing exercise Italy March 2nd 1944

"Today we are crushed by the sheer weight of the mechanized forces hurled against us, but we can still look to the future in which even greater mechanized forces will bring us victory. Therein lies the destiny of the world." Charles de Gaulle

WW2 Danish Anti aircraft gun with crew

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.
John F. Kennedy

WW2 U-S Marine after 2 days and nights of hell on beach of Eniwetok in Marshall Islands- Feb 1944

"The casualty rate was enormous. It was ghastly. Iwo [Jima] was a volcanic island with very little concealment ... Few trees. No grass. It was almost like a piece of the moon that had dropped down to earth. I don't think there's been any place with more dismemberment, more bodies cut to pieces." Ted Allenby

Source: http://military.discovery.com/convergence/iwojima/soldiersstories/soldiersstories_02.html

WW2 soldiers on Belorussian Front take a break

"While we were running across the bridge – and, man, it may have been only 250 yards but it seemed like 250 miles to us – I spotted this lieutenant, standing out there completely exposed to the machine gun fire that was pretty heavy by this time...He was cutting wires and kicking the German demolition charges off the bridge with his feet! Boy that took plenty of guts. He's the one who saved the bridge and made the whole thing possible – the kinda guy I'd like to know."

(story told by Sgt. Alexander A. Drabik talking about Lt. John W. Mitchell of Pittsburgh)

Source: Capturing the Bridge at Remagen 1945 http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/remagen.htm

WW2 French Soldier Battle of Britain 1940

Then aircraft started dropping parachute flares. We saw them hanging all about us in the night, like young moons. The sound of the firing and the bombing was with us always, growing steadily louder as we got nearer and nearer. The flames grew, too. From a glow they rose up to enormous plumes of fire that roared high into the everlasting pall of smoke. As we approached Dunkirk there was an air attack on the destroyers and for a little the night was brilliant with bursting bombs and the fountain sprays of tracer bullets.

Source: Evacuation at Dunkirk 1940 http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/dunkirk.htm

References: This account appears in: Commager, Henry Steele, The Story of the Second World War (1945); Devine A.D. Dunkirk (1948); Wernick, Robert Blitzkrieg (1976).

WW2 German boy soldier

War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun. Mao Zedong

WW2 Soviet Soldiers

We make war that we may live in peace. Aristotle

WW2 Sikh soldiers in tank in Libya

WW2 Canadian Medic gives water to injured German soldier

WW2 Turkish machine gunners

WW2 Russian soldiers Battle for Stalingrad

In war there is no substitute for victory. General Douglas MacArthur

WW2 Albanian soldiers Zogist soldiers

We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.
Douglas MacArthur

WW2 German boy soldier in tears

It is only the dead who have seen the end of war. Plato

WW2 Japanese Soldier Kamakazee

"Continue in the task till all your ammunition is expended. If your hands are broken, fight with your feet. If your hands and feet are broken, fight with your teeth. If there is no breath left in your body, fight with your spirit. Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat."
Japanese General giving the Order of the day to his troops

Source:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1168185/Revealed-The-terrible-suffering-extraordinary-courage-British-WW2-soldiers-fighting-Japanese-Burmese-jungle.html

WW2 Soviet soldier leading a charge

WW1 soldiers

American howitzers shell German forces retreating near Carentan France. July 11-1944

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war. Ernest Miller Hemmingway

Japanese soldiers use live Chinese soldiers captured in Xuzhou area for bayonet practice-May 1938

“… now they are starting to throw kamikazes at us. They came in and you could hit them, but even if you hit them, they are still coming with momentum… .” David Hardy U.S. Navy Pacific Theater

Source: http://www.ww2stories.org/portraits/david-hardy

WW2 Hitler Youth soldiers

Veni, Vedi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) Julius Caesar


Sgt. H.E. Cooper, 48th Highlanders of Canada. August 11, 1943, Sicily (www.canadaatwar.ca)

WW2 D-Day Invasion - British soldiers on the way to battle

In from the beach were high hills which we had to climb. We crawled most of the way up. As we filed by those awful scenes going up the hill and moving inland, I prayed hard for those suffering men, scattered here and there and seemingly everywhere. Capt. John G. Burkhalter (D Day landings on Omaha Beach)

Source: http://www.highrock.com/JohnGBurkhalter/D-day.html

WW2 Australian troops in Burma

WW2 Soviet Sniper Julia Petrovna. Killed 80 Germans

WW2 Maori Battalion training exercise in Egypt

The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his. George Patton

US. Marine cradles baby-the only survivor from hundreds dead Japanese in Siapan cave -summer of 1944

“… at night when we were in the jungle, it was so dark you couldn’t see anything, from here to you. So the Japanese would sneak right up and stab you in the back right in your own foxhole.” Donald Moore

Source: http://www.ww2stories.org/portraits/donald-moore

Polish Sniper WW2

WW1-Battle of the Somme - allied soldier wounded at the start of the battle. He was dead within half a hour.

"We were walking on dead soldiers ... I saw poor fellows trying to

bandage their wounds... bombs, heavy shells were falling all

over them ... it is the worst sight that a man ever wants to see." Canadian soldier Frank Maheux

(source: Le Canada: A Peoples History-Horror on the Battlefield (WW1)

http://www.cbc.ca/history/SECTIONSE1EP12CH1LE.html

Finnish Soldiers WW2 Winter War

"Men were thrown headlong at Finnish guns. Tanks and their crews were shelled and burned, whole regiments of infantry encircled. Entire battalions of troops, the spearhead of the Red Army, were cut off from their reinforcements and supplies."

(unknown Soviet Red Army soldier / Soviet-Finnish Winter War)

WW2 Young Chinese Nationalist Soldier

Red Army Soldiers Armia Czerwona WW2

That’s all the excitement you get in a tank because in a tank, when they hit with a bullet and your own ammunition inside start exploding, so no chance to get out. Pawel Lojko (Poland)

Source: http://www.thememoryproject.com/stories/815:pawel-lojko/

WW2 Swedish Infantry

There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever. Thomas A. Edison

WW2 Polish Army in Italy Monte Cassino Battle

The main street was being bombed from somewhere in the center of town. It took us a long time to realise, a German Tiger Tank had been bricked up inside a house. Every so often, the shuttered windows would open, an 88mm gun poked out, blasted forth, withdrew, windows closed, and everyone said. “Where the hell did that come from?” (Narrative of Battle of Monte Cassino)

Militia Boys by Trevor Palmer (story about James Palmer)

Source: BBC WW2 Peoples War

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/94/a2064494.shtml

Private DB MacDonald-Royal Canadian Regiment-Oct 1943 Campobasso Italy-holding Bren gun

"On our deck, the men stood silently, staring across the water, each overwhelmed by an incinerating rage. Gone were the exhaustion, the frustration and the monotony of six weeks at sea. We forgot the oppressive heat, the monotonous meals and the acute shortage of water. The irritation of these discomforts was replaced by a bitter urge to get back to sea, to exact terrible retribution. Standing there, side by side, there was little conversation, because for many, like me, speaking would have erupted like a sob." (Dec 8, 1941 Pearl Harbor)

Source: http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/veterans/articles/soldierstories.html

WW2 Soviet Union submarine commander Series XIV of the _Cruising K-21_Captain 2nd Rank Nikolai Lunin--45mm semiautomatic-notice the periscope

Yeah, then the sharks came. Lured by the blood and the movement, they picked us off like cheese crackers on a party tray. We could see the lights of the rescue ship and we prayed. Lord God, we prayed. Some men tried to swim to the center, not to be on the outer ring of men, not to be pulled under and tossed up and chewed to hell. But the movement of their legs in the water just pulled the sharks closer. You could hear the screams. You could taste blood and vomit and sea water in your own mouth and you prayed God please get me out of here. And then the sharks came. Keith Rosenstiel - USS Maddox

(Excerpt from book "And then the sharks came")

http://www.memoriesofwar.com/veterans/rosenstiel.asp

American officer at periscope of US submarine WW2

WW2 Belgian Soldier

WW2 Japanese Kamakazee Pilots

"(The Japanese) just pulled their guns into the cliffs and mountains of Saipan, so when we came in it was like shooting ducks out there and we were the ducks!" George Miller- U.S. Marine Corps Pacific Theater

Source: http://www.ww2stories.org/portraits/george-miller

WW2 Chinese soldier shot by Japanese ambush

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.

Otto Von Bismark

WW2 Czech soldier pointing to the sky

WW2 Close-up of German paratrooper with MP40

"I did not shoot for the lust of killing but only to stay alive...I knew if only a single one survived he would shoot me." (German soldier Severloh, "Beat of Omaha" infamous for killing thousands of Allied soldiers on June 6, 1944 D-Day).

Source: article "War and Emerging Remembrance: German Veterans Begin to Add Narrative to

WWII. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10191-2004Jul23.html

WW2-Special Air Service troops pictured in the North African desert

Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole.
Bernard Law Montgomery

Dutch Soldiers on Guard near German border 1939

By Nationaal Archief - Mobilisatie 1939 / Dutch soldiers on guardUploaded by oaktree_b, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17583086

(Editors Comment: Correct photo uploaded 12.14.2017)

WW2 Hungarian arrow cross soldier

In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. Sun Tzu

Greek Soldiers WW2-BrixiaMortar

Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war. Thucydides

WW2 Soviet soldier shell shock

"The terrifying scream of the dive-bombers reached me first, followed by the crashing explosion of a direct hit. There was a blinding flash and then a second explosion, much louder than the first. I was shaken by a weird blast of warm air. There was still another shock, but less severe, apparently a near miss. Then followed a startling quiet as the barking of guns suddenly ceased. I got up and looked at the sky. The enemy planes were already gone from sight."

Source: Battle of Midway 1942 http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/midway.htm

WW2 Malayan soldiers ferocious charge to defend peninsula -Malay battle zone February 10, 1942

WW2 Italian army Father Intreccialagli-chaplain of the Legione Tagliamento

WW2 German prisoners captured during Allied raid on German-Italian position in Sened-Tunisia February 27 1943 - they look content

"Germany must either be a world power or there will be no Germany" (from Hitler's Mein Kampf)

WW2 US Marine Guadalcanal M1 Garand

"A gigantic fleet amassed in Pearl Harbor. This fleet will be utterly crushed with one blow at the very beginning of hostilities. Heaven will bear witness to the righteousness of our struggle."

November 1941 Imperial Japanese Navy Rear-Admiral Ito

WW2 Warsaw Uprising-female insurgents of Home Army

The relentless, heavy German fire continued. Artillery shells, rockets and other assorted missiles were falling all around us. Particularly unpleasant were the heavy shells known to us as `cows' or `wardrobes' because their explosion was preceded by a noise like cattle lowing, or a heavy wardrobe being pushed about.

Stanislaw Likiernik. By Devil's Luck: A Tale of Resistance in Wartime Warsaw.

Source: http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/likiernik2.htm

Brazilian soldiers of FEB in Porreta-Termi, Italy 1944-weapons 2 Grease guns and a Thompson

We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

WW2 American soldiers 16th Infantry Regiment injured storming Omaha Beach--waiting for evacuation to field hospital-Collville-sur-Mer- Normandy

WW2 soldier from Chad -Free French infantryman 1942

Victory belongs to the most persevering. Napoleon Bonaparte

WW1-Canadian soldiers in trenches

Hundreds, after a dreadful fight for air, became unconscious and died where they lay - a death of hideous torture, with the frothing bubbles gurgling in their throats and the foul liquid welling up in their lungs. With blackened faces and twisted limbs one by one they drowned - only that which drowned them came from inside and not from out. (Anonymous) source: The German Gas Attack at Ypres, April 1915

WW2 Italian aviators

"The Mediterranean will be turned into an Italian lake." Mussolini

WW2 Hungarian soldiers at Voronezh-Russia1942

WW2 Wounded Canadians captured during Dieppe Raid August 1942

WW2 Operation Chariot Private Tom McCormick suffered severe head wound. He died two weeks later.

WW2 Czech soldier in England-exercise-Bren light machine gun

"The most scared I ever was, was when we were in camp outside of Paris and the Germans were sending over V-2 Rockets or "Buzz Bombs". They sounded like a freight train coming in. When they'd run out of fuel, they would light up in the air before they hit. One fell about 300 yards from my tent and exploded. That was the most scared I ever was." (excerpt from book by Grover C. Boone, "They have seen the elephant: Veteran's remembrances from WWII - For the 40th Anniversary of VE Day 1985)

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/36872765/WWII-Wartime-Soldier-Stories

Private G-R_MacDonald-Toronto Scottish Regiment MG- giving first aid to injured French boy-Brionne France- Aug 25 1944

The noise was continuous, day and night. The planes came over at night and so did the Germans. They launched flares in an attempt to locate us and then bomb our position.

Roméo Ouellet, régiment de la Chaudière (Riviere du Loup, Quebec)

WW2 Chinese nationalist troops using small mortar 1943

WW2 Polish Division 307-Lwowskich Puchaczy-L-R- Lt Leon Michalski and Lt pilot Alfred Suskiewicz in Mosquito VI Nov1943

I immediately found myself in a world alien to everything I had ever experienced. There were ME-109s and FW-190s leaping into existence from everywhere without warning. When they opened fire you saw sudden flashes of light winking at you from the distance. All at once there existed a canopy of cannon shells and bombs, aerial mines and rockets exploding everywhere. Each one was intent on hitting our pregnant bomb load and us. (Description of Black Thursday, The Schweinfurt Mission: Excerpt from article "Reality" by Wally Hoffman)

Source: http://www.kilroywashere.org/003-Pages/Hoffman/03-Harm--Hoffman.html

German soldiers in house-Italy-WW2

"You gasp for air, which doesn't come, you drag your legs upwards till they seem reduced to the strength of matchsticks, and all the time sweat is pouring off you."

Lt Sam Horner, of 2 Royal Norfolks

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1168185/Revealed-The-terrible-suffering-extraordinary-courage-British-WW2-soldiers-fighting-Japanese-Burmese-jungle.html#ixzz1uDraSw5v

WW2 Hungarian 37mm Bofors AA gun & crew


WWI--Irish Soldier with captured German Sappenpanzer-Pilkem Ridge 1917

“All the lights went out – and the steel door to get out was jammed,” said Robert. “The ship was turning and the portholes were below the water line. It was like a sealed coffin. Someone shouted ‘we’re going’ and I thought we were headed to the bottom of the ocean. Then there was another explosion from the ammunition locker. That saved us – it blew the steel door open by 18 inches – just enough for us to squeeze out."

Quartermaster Robert Lang, on the SS Kingswood attacked by U-boat December 17, 1943

Source: http://heroesreturn.org/2012/01/06/711/

WW2-soldiers-Caucasus-point

WW2 Soviet Soldiers

WW2 Chinese nationalist soldiers-NRA machinegunners

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.
George S. Patton

WW2 Hungarian Honveds with Panzerfaust_destroyed Russian T-34 in Budapest -battles ended February 11th 1945

WW2 Italian Bomber - Gunner

WW1 Royal Irish Rifles-in the trenches - Battle of Somme July 1916

The ground in front of us was alive - a great crawling mass of black heads and khaki bodies, pushing and struggling, like maggots crowding about a rotting carcass.

Excerpt from THE DEVIL MY FRIEND BY Captain C. H. Trehane

Source: http://www.firstworldwar.com/diaries/thedevilmyfriend.htm

WW2 Leningrad Front Ivan Antonov Russian sniper

In Memory of Private GERARD DORE
Fusilers Mont Royal (Montreal)
KIA in France on July 23, 1944.

He was only 16.

Video: WW2 Soldiers (00:02:08m)