World War 2 Photos

Carro Armato M13/40 on parade.

John Rutledge — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:45:59 -0400

M13/40 Italian medium tanks parade through Tripoli, Libya, 1941. Sandbags were dispensed with in this relatively safe environment. I had not really noticed before - but is notable (though perhaps not surprising) how often sandbag supplemental armour appears in photos of this tank. Best regards, JR.
In album Italian Forces

Fiat Carro Armato M13/40 in the desert.

John Rutledge — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:40:14 -0400

Good left-side-view of a CA M13/40 in motion in the Western Desert. This example carries the additional (fourth) roof-mounted Breda 8-mm machine gun intended for anti-aircraft use; a relatively unusual feature, I think. Supplementary armour, in the form of sandbags, is also present. Best regards, JR.
In album Italian Forces

Sandbagged.

John Rutledge — Thu, 23 May 2013 06:44:11 -0400

Italian Carro Armato CM13/40 medium tanks in action in North Africa. The extraordinary number of sandbags attached to the vehicles represents what is probably a realistic appraisal of the inadequacies of this tank's armour against British tank guns. And this was Italy's best true tank ... However brave Italian soldiers may have been, the poor quality of much of their equipment, from rifles up, gave them little chance of victory in a war in which machinery mattered. Best regards, JR.
In album Italian Forces

Total War.

John Rutledge — Thu, 23 May 2013 06:10:27 -0400

In a career highlight, Dr Joseph Goebbels addresses a full house at the Berlin Sportpalast, urging the need for total war to save Germany and Europe from Bolshevism. A timely address, as recent defeats in North Africa and, in particular, at Stalingrad, had persuaded the Nazi administration, finally, to put the German economy (and its satrapies in the Occupied countries), on a full war footing. Best regards, JR.
In album Homefront

Quite exploded, El Alamein.

John Rutledge — Thu, 23 May 2013 05:50:14 -0400

I at first thought that this was a destroyed tankette, but closer inspection suggests that it is actually an Italian Carro Armato M13/40 medium tank which has suffered a catastrophic internal explosion, resulting in serious disruption to the armour plate and the "popping off" of the turret. I think you can just see the turret ring in the tank's deck, and one side of the turret to the left of the photograph. Best regards, JR.
In album Italian Forces

Coastal defence cruiser Väinämöinen

Ostuf W — Thu, 23 May 2013 05:18:22 -0400

Camoflaged coastal defence cruiser Väinämöinen somewhere in the Finnish gulf peninsula 29.7.1944

SA-Kuva 159020
In album Finnish Forces

At the seaside ...

John Rutledge — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:14:17 -0400

German Army and Naval offices surveying Braye Harbour, Alderney, Channel Islands.

Braye Harbour was a result of a mid-19th century British project to fortify the Channel Islands against French Naval attack. Having built, with considerable difficulty, one of two projected harbour barrier walls, it finally dawned on the British that, given the pretty extreme tidal variations on the Channel Islands, they were indulging themselves in a futile exercise, both from the point of view of defence and possible French occupation. As a result, the main project was abandoned - although the difficult project of maintaining the single (therefore grossly inadequate) harbour wall continues to this day.

The German occupation of Alderney represents perhaps the most extreme, and most curious aspect of the wartime occupation of the Channel Islands. Before their arrival, the entire population of the island (some 1,500 people at the time) had been evacuated to England or (in a small minority of cases, self-directed, to Guernsey). This seemed to have freed the Germans to fortify Alderney to an extraordinary extent, using slave labour, both Jewish and non-Jewish, confined in a number of concentration camps technically subortinate to the Neuengamme Concentration Camp near Hamburg, Germany, and its Channel Island subsidiaries. Enforced labour from Aldernay was also use to help fortify the neighbouring Channel Islands - in the context of the 1940s, an equally futile exercise. Alderney became a sort of concentration camp/holiday (for Germans) holiday camp) until 1944 when, under the threat of Allied invasion, the prisoners and garrison were evacuated to the Continent. Best regards, JR.
In album German Forces

A Slightly German Coup ?

John Rutledge — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:44:49 -0400

German victory parade marches past the Lloyds Bank branch in St. Peter Port, Guernsey (Channel Islands). The Germans occupied the Channel Islands as a sort of tidying-up operation following their conquest of France. They proceeded to fortify the islands way beyond any reasonable conception of strategic importance (unless one counts strategic appraisals dating from the 13th century). Probably the most important use applied by the Germans to the occupied Channel Islands was that of rest and recuperation location for exhausted troops from the Eastern Front.

Can't help thinking that the narrow streets of St. Peter Port were less than ideal when it came to staging a triumphal parade ... Best regards, JR.
In album German Forces

Tea at the Berghof.

John Rutledge — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:16:59 -0400

Hitler precedes the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, following a visit by the Ducal couple to the Berghof, pre-war. At this stage, the Duke had abdicated his position as King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland etc. in favour of his younger brother, the Duke of York (King George VI, Britain's wartime king), following the crisis resulting from his insistence on marrying the Duchess (Wallis Simpson, and American divorceé)/

Even before the death of his father and his accession to the British Crown, Edward, Duke of Wales (Bertie in his family) had a pretty unreliable profile. He led a playboy lifestyle, mixing in British upper class circles in which Nazi and proto-Fascist sympathies were common. Many of his posh pals were members of or sympathisers with the Oxford Groups/Moral Rearmament movement, an American pseudo-Christian cult that espoused Corporativist social principles. The Groups' founder/leader, renegade minister of the US German Lutheran Church, Frank Buchman, was a regular attender of Nazi rallies before the war, where he generally occupied a place in the honoured reviewing stands and was noted for his enthusiastic participation in the "Heil Hitlers" when called for. In the face of this, postwar claims on the part of the Moral Rearmament movement that their cult was regarded by the Gestapo as a danger to Naziism ring rather hollow; Heinrich Muller and his spooks may not have been keen on them but, apparently, their boss Himmler was.

The Duke's flirtation with Fascism and - particularly - with Naziism continued up to the start of the war and, perhaps, beyond that. It is difficult to be sure, but it may be that the Duke and Duchess harboured some hope that German influence - or perhaps even German conquest - might result in his being reinstated as King. Hitler may have hoped to use their position to advance German influence in the British upper class further. Neither hopes ever seemed particularly likely to bear fruit. The British eventually forced "Bertie" and his bride from their peripathetic European exile to take up a position as Governor and First Lady in a far-away Caribbean colony; certainly far away from being able to do any mischief in collusion with the Nazis. Best regards, JR.
In album German Leadership

Eisenhower in helmet

mikeg — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:03:23 -0400

This is the only photo of Ike wearing a helmet in WWII that I have ever seen. The photo caption was, "Alexander, Eisenhower and Patton in Feriana on March 17, 1943. The day that the American attack on Gafsa and El Guettar began.
In album US Army

Atlantic Eagle

John Rutledge — Wed, 22 May 2013 08:38:41 -0400

ORP Burza, "Wicher" Class destroyer, French-built for the Polish Navy, in Atlantic camouflage, England, 1940. The "Burza" was one of the three Polish destroyers successful in evacuating to England on the eve of the German invasion of Poland as part of the "Peking Plan".

One could criticise the decision of the Polish authorities, despite pressure from Britain, not to evacuate more of their Navy at this time; a few other units did make it to Britain, but most (including the Burza's Class-leader, ORP Wicher) were sunk by the Kriegsmarine in the Baltic and the Gulf of Gdansk in the first days of the war. The criticism seems harsh. The Poles had their own perception (however unrealistic in the event) of their prospects for resisting German attack, not excluding calculations as to likely Allied support that were grievously disappointed. Perhaps, faced with British pressure for the evacuation of their most effective ships, they should have read the tea-leaves.

In any event, ORP Burza (meaning, I think, "Storm") - in spite of the deficiencies of the "Wicher" Class (slow, high profile, undergunned etc.) served with distinction on Atlantic convoy work between 1940 and 1944, at which time it became a training ship and resupply ship for Polish submarines. It was subsequently returned to Poland, where it became a museum ship, eventually being replaced and scrapped in 1977. Best regards, JR.
In album Polish Forces

To the Nerevtna.

John Rutledge — Wed, 22 May 2013 07:41:57 -0400

Soldiers of 7 SS Volunteer Mountain Division, "Prinz Eugen" take a ride across a Bosnian river in the early stages of "Operation White" (Fourth Anti-Partisan Offensive, January-March, 1943), clinging to one of the Division's French-built Hotchkiss H-39 light tanks.

"Prinz Eugen" was, supposedly, a volunteer division composed of Balkan ethnic Germans. As was usual in such cases, officers and, to a very large extent, NCOs were supplied from native German Waffen-SS formations. In practice, and unlike the situation regarding the recruitment of west European volunteer "Germanic" Waffen-SS formations, little enough respect was paid to the "volunteer" principle in this case; a large proportion of the Division's rank-and-file was made up of unenthusiastic ethnic German conscripts, a precedent for the way "Volksdeutsch" populations in the East would be treated in the formation and maintenance of later "volunteer" SS units. One similarity with the "Germanic" divisions was the initial bad relations between native German officers and NCOs and their Balkan "brothers", many of whom did not even speak German, and who were generally regarded as second-class Germans by their metropolitan superiors. The divisional commander, Artur Phleps, a hardened veteran of WW1 (with the Austria-Hungarian Army) and himself an Austro-Romanian-born "Volksdeutsch", sought to suppress this discord, and eventually seems to have been reasonably successful, albeit with the personal assistance of the Reichsfuhrer-SS.

In spite of these initial difficulties, "Prinz Eugen" functioned well as an anti-Partisan unit, playing an important and forceful part in anti-Partisan operations in the Balkans from late-1942 until the expulsion of the Germans by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. In a postwar interview, top SS administrator Obergruppenfuhrer Karl Wolff identified "Prinz Eugen", along with the "Florian Geyer" cavalry division as, in his opinion, the most impressive anti-Partisan units of the Waffen-SS.

As for "Fall Weiss" - this culminated with the Partisan Army pinned against the Nerevtna river, but escaping by tricking the German/Italian command as to their intentions, wrong-footing the latter and crossing the river by way of a bridge (which they had blown up as part of the deception, but later repaired temporarily), allowing them to cross the river and annihilate the weak Serb Cetnik forces guarding the western bank (the Cetniks were going through one of their ostensibly pro-German phases at the time). Although they had suffered heavy casualties, Tito and the Comrades as a force lived to fight another day, establishing themselves in western Bosnia to recover. The Fifth Anti-Partisan Campaign (Fall Schwartz) soon followed ... Best regards, JR.
In album German Forces

Battleship Väinämöinen

Ostuf W — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:56:01 -0400

Camoflaged battleship Väinämöinen. 29.7.1944

SA-Kuva 159010
In album Finnish Forces

Captured Jagdtiger

Guest — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:15:21 -0400

a Jagdtiger captured by British forces after its crew abandon it. the heavy tank destroyer is being ready to be sent to England for testing and evaluation
In album British Forces

On a Balkan airfield

iginocoggi — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:45:45 -0400

Ground operations around a Messerschmitt Bf 109E of the Luftwaffe’s Jagdgeschwader 27 (JG27) during his brief operational cycle in the Balkans, April 1941, against Yugoslavia and Greece. The airplane has still the original JG27’s emblem used prior to move in North Africa. But a “109” in background seem to have a North African camouflage. Victor Sierra
In album German Air Force

Over Crete

iginocoggi — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:23:42 -0400

Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6s equipped with auxiliary fuel tank of the Luftwaffe’s 7./JG 27 in flight over Crete photographed from a He 111. The aircraft in foreground is the "Weiß 2" (“White 2”) of the Leutnant Josef-Emil Clade (27 kills), Staffelkapitän of 7./JG 27. December 1943 Victor Sierra
In album German Air Force

"Chips" - The War Dog

Dale Press — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:37:37 -0400

War dog "Chips", the only animal to hold the Silver Star, is greeted by his family after return to U.S. He was decorated for heroism in the invasion of Sicily.

In album Colorizations By Users

Chinese Madsen on a tripod

Guest — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:56:18 -0400

A Chinese trooper with a Madsen LMG mounted on a tripod.
In album Chinese Forces

Italian Regio Esercito Cavalry Squadron

Guest — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:27:29 -0400

Italian Armoured Cavalry Squadron with Fiat 508 CM 1100 - 1939
In album Italian Forces

“Doubtful Doris”

iginocoggi — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:12:24 -0400

Doubtful Doris”, the Northrop P-61B-6 “Black Widow” Serial No. 42-39532, of the USAAF’s 414th Night Fighter Squadron. The first components of the 414th arrived in Algeria and later in Tunisia from a RAF OUT in England in the Summer 1943, but in November 1943 the Squadron is in Sardinia, Elmas airfield, Cagliari, where will based until 22 June 44 with a Detachment in Corsica, Ghisonaccia and Borgo, and another again in Sardinia, Alghero airfield. On 12 October 1944 the 414th moved to Tuscany, at Pisa, until 25 November 1944, and Pontedera, 25 November 1944-15 July 1945 with a Detachment in Belgium, at Florennes. Waiting the P-61 the 414th NFS was equipped with British-built Bristol Beaufighter with them achieved 8 of the 13 victories claimed. The firs P-61 was received on 20 December 1944 and the first kill, a Ju 88, date on 4 February 1945. The five victories achieved with P-61 was two Ju 88, one Me 410 and two Ju 52. Victor Sierra
In album US Army Air Force

"Black Widow" in Italy

iginocoggi — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:18:50 -0400

Northrop P-61B-2-NO "Black Widow" of USAAF’s 414th Night Fighter Squadron based in Mediterranean Theatre of Operations. The aircraft of the photo, #42-39486, was lost when crashed near Reggiolo, (Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy) in the night of April 22, 1945. At this time the 414th NFS, which replaced the their Beaufighters with P-61s in Dec.1944, were based at Pontedera, Tuscany. Victor Sierra
In album US Army Air Force

UTAU BEACH MEMORIAL

Guest — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:25:22 -0400

Memorial program for fallen combat engineers.
In album US Army

Cecile Cowdery drew on the envelopes

history — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:50:43 -0400

Cecile Cowdery drew on the envelopes of letters to her husband during WW2: "After my first colorful envelope arrived, Ray let me know it had drawn a lot of attention from the other soldiers. From then on, I dared not let up! I drew those scenes to help him feel special. While other soldiers got “Dear John” letters, my man was assured daily by my sharing of remembered things from back home."
from http://www.facebook.com/baungez44
In album Unknown Photos

Russian POWS

wlocho — Sun, 19 May 2013 11:37:44 -0400

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In album Colorizations By Users

We shall not fail

Guest — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:07:17 -0400

With railroad transportation and the statue of Liberty this poster is amazing. Framed nicely.
In album US Army

The Breda 65’s weapons

iginocoggi — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:13:00 -0400

An Italian pilot going on board of a Breda 65/Fiat A-80 single seat ground attack airplane with engine idling for warm. This photo well highlight the wing installation of the Breda 65’s weapons and the different barrel’s length of the two version of the Breda-SAFAT machine guns: shorter the barrel of the 7.7 mm (0.30), the external MG, longer the barrel of the 12.7 mm (0.50), the inner MG. The fixed armament of this “Aereo d’Assalto” (literally “assault aircraft”), which ended the series of aircraft influenced by the theories about the “Aviazione d’Assalto” (assault aviation) of Amedeo Mecozzi, (previous Ansaldo-Dewoitine AC.1, Caproni AP.1 and Breda 64), was four MG, two 7.7 mm, two 12.7 mm in the wings, for the single seat version, or five weapons, the four MG in the wings plus another flexible 12.7 in turret, for the two-seat version. Of the four airplanes developed in accord with the Mecozzi’s theories, the Breda 65 was the only used in true war operations: by the Italian Regia Aeronautica in the Spanish Civil War and in North Africa during the first months of Italy’s involvement in the WW2 and, for a very brief time, by the Iraqi Air Force during the Iraqi’s uprising angainst the British. Victor Sierra
In album Italian Forces

Breda-SAFAT machine guns

iginocoggi — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:19:23 -0400

This detail of a Breda 65 ground attack airplane of the Regia Aeronautica’s 50th Stormo Assalto, notice the unit’s insignia over the engine cowling, show well the two machine guns which, apart the Scotti’s MG, was almost the standard Italian aircraft’s armament during the WW2 both in fixed (in the wings or synchronized with the propeller on the nose) and flexible installations (turret): Breda-SAFAT caliber 7.7 mm (0.303 in), in foreground, and Breda-SAFAT caliber 12.7 mm (0.500 in), in background, well recognizable for the different length of the barrel: 64 cm (25 in) for the 7.7 mm (total length 109 cm/43 in), 80 cm (31 in) for the 12.7 mm (total length 139 cm/55 in). Based on the M1919 Browning machine gun, and developed upon a Regia Aeronautica’s requirement half Thirties by Società Italiana Ernesto Breda of Milan which absorbed the Società Anonima Fabbrica Armi Torino (SAFAT), a former division of FIAT Group, the two Italian MG were chambered to fire indigenous ammunition with 7.7 mm (0.303 in) and 12.7 mm (0.500 in) caliber, predominantly ball, tracer for the 7.7mm, including high-explosive-incendiary-tracer (HEIT) (filled with 0.8 grams of PETN), or armour-piercing (AP) for the 12.7mm. In particular the 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT was a belt fed, short recoil operated weapon, essentially an Italian modified Browning M1921 mechanism, but shorter and slightly less heavy than the US machine gun, which was mounted experimentally first in the FIAT CR.30 fighter biplane and introduced in large scale in the his successor, the CR.32 fighter. During the use in the war both the MG proved itself well-constructed, sturdy and extremely reliable weapons rarely jammed in action. Other characteristics: weight 7.7 mm 12.5 kg (28 lb), 12.7 mm 29 kg (64 lb); rate of fire 7.7mm 800–900 rounds/min, 12.7 mm 700 rounds/min (575 rounds/min synchronized); muzzle velocity 7.7 mm 730 meter per second (2,400 ft/s), 12.7 mm 765 meter per second (2,510 ft/s); feed system belt-fed; cooling, air. The MG, especially the 12.7 mm, was also produced and employed as ground weapon in particular for AA defence. Victor Sierra
In album Italian Forces

Fallschirmjäger

Guest — Sat, 18 May 2013 15:48:52 -0400

Fallschirmjäger mit einer MP40
In album Colorizations By Users

mountain troop officer

Guest — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:33:37 -0400

Mountain troops officer equipped with an MP-40. Slovakia - March 1945

Source: Armata Română 1941-1945 - C.I Scafeș, H.Vl. Șerbănescu, I.I. Scafeș, C. Andonie, I. Dănilă, R. Avram - Ed. Rai, București 1996;
In album Romanian Forces

MG crew

Guest — Sat, 18 May 2013 07:41:17 -0400

Romanian MG crew from the 1st „Roșiori” regiment, 1st Cavalry Division in a ZB-30 machine-gun position at the river Tisa front. 24 November 1944 - Tisa river, Hungary.
Note: starting by mid 1943 some romanian cavalry and mountain troops were equipped with M35 german steel helmets, this helmets remained in use until October 1944.

Source: Armata Română 1941-1945 - C.I Scafeș, H.Vl. Șerbănescu, I.I. Scafeș, C. Andonie, I. Dănilă, R. Avram - Ed. Rai, București 1996;
In album Romanian Forces