Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

[Fluff]

French tanks 1940
View attachment 391814

Lovely, but they are sadly British Matilda 1. Armed with the utterly impressive 1 of .303 vickers mg. Fortunately all were lost in France.

 

[NebrHogger]

^ Well, that's what I get for believing captions on a Russian site! My bad!

 

[santana]

Pictures of US B-29 Squadron in the Pacific

 

[Conhoon]

German Alpenkorps - Men of the Schneeschuh-Ersatzabteilung from Immenstadt training for their deployment at the front in the Allgäu Alps. 1915

Photograph by Johann Stock of Munich
Colourised by Colour by RJM
Image colourised for Iron Cross Issue 5

 

[Conhoon]

WW1 – Sept. 1917. Unable to ride his cycle through the mud caused by the recent storm. A Canadian messenger carries his "horse”.

Credits: Government of Canada, Overseas Military Forces of Canada fonds/e001131472.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge, during World War I, is Canada's most celebrated military victory, an often mythologized symbol of the birth of Canadian pride and national awareness. The four divisions of the Canadian Military Corps, fighting together for the first time, attacked the ridge from 9 to 12 April 1917 and captured it from the German army. It was the greatest territorial advance of any Allied force to date in the war - but it meant little to the outcome of the conflict. More than 10,500 Canadians were killed and wounded in the assault. Today an iconic white memorial atop the ridge honors the 11,285 Canadians killed in France during the war.

 

[BravoZulu]

US soldiers walking though the Normandy Bocage on the way to Coutances, France. June/July 1944

 

[BravoZulu]

8 July 1944 Sherman tanks of the 144th Royal Armoured Corps, supporting 3rd Infantry Division, moving forward near Lebisey Wood for Operation 'Charnwood', the assault on Caen.

 

[BravoZulu]

Boys examine the WW2 bomb damaged frontage of 'The Fortune of War' pub on the lower esplanade on the seafront in Brighton, Sussex

 

[BravoZulu]

WW1, British officer and his dog visit the grave of Major James McCudden VC.

 

[santana]

A soldier of the French Foreign Legion holding his dog Fritz, his battalion mascot, at Bir Hakeim. Fritz ‘moved over to the other side’ and joined the battalion in Narvik in 1940 and stayed with them ever since.
Photograph taken around the time of the Battle of Bir Hakeim, 12 June 1942.

 

[BravoZulu]

10 July 1944. A 6-pounder anti-tank gun of the 1st Battalion, King's Own Scottish Borderers, part of the 9th Brigade of the British 3rd Division, along with Canadian Sherman tanks in Rue Montoir Poissonnerie near St-Pierre Church, Caen.

 

[santana]

Sergeant Johnny Yanak of the 2nd Infantry Division clutches his Thompson Machine Gun as he peers over a hedgerow for the enemy in Brest, France during the Normandy Campaign.
As the Allies pushed forward after the D-Day invasion, the 2nd, 8th, and 29th Infantry Divisions were tasked with storming the German stronghold in Brest. Led by a German paratrooper, the 40,000-man garrison in Brest was ordered by Adolf Hitler to be defended to the last bullet.
Heavy casualties forced American soldiers to shift from all-out assaults on German positions to taking out one strongpoint at a time and then holding on for dear life during the German counterattacks. In fighting reminiscent of island combat against the Japanese in the Pacific, soldiers used flamethrowers, satchel charges, and concentrated small-arms fire to move slowly from point to point. When Brest was liberated by the Allies in September of 1944, nearly 10,000 American soldiers had given their lives or had been wounded in the fighting. Gone, but not forgotten.

 

[santana]

U.S. soldiers from the 30th Infantry Division with a Lewis Gun in a trench in Flanders, July 9, 1918.

This photograph, colourised by Leo Courvoisier on Facebook, was taken today 104 years ago.

The U.S. 30th Infantry Division was part of the U.S. Army Corps II, which was assigned to British and Australian units for training and combat during the First World War - hence why these Doughboys are pictured with a British Lewis Gun, and why they were in Flanders to begin with, as the rest of the American Expeditionary Force was positioned in or near Lorraine.

Some 50,000 U.S. troops from the 27th and 30th Infantry Divisions were initially trained under British command, but their most significant contribution in the First World War came under Australian command during the Battle of the St. Quentin Canal in September - October 1918.

These U.S. forces spearheaded the attack on September 29, 1918 and met stiff German resistance, suffering a staggering 7800 casualties on the first day and 13,182 by the end of the battle.

By the end of the First World War the 27th Division had suffered 1,442 deaths and another 6,892 wounded or missing. The 30th Division had suffered 1,237 deaths with 7,178 wounded and missing.

The U.S. 33rd Infantry Division also fought under Australian command and participated in the Battle of Hamel on July 4, 1918 - with Australian General Monash deliberately choosing the U.S. Independence Day for the battle as a gesture and source of motivation for his American troops. The 33rd Division also fought with the Australians in the Battle of Amiens in August 1918.

However, U.S. General Pershing was dissatisfied with the use of American troops and recalled the 33rd Division on August 23, which joined the rest of the American Expeditionary Force afterwards, eventually participating in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

By the end of the war the 33rd Division had suffered 691 deaths and 6,173 wounded or missing.

 

[santana]

On this day in U.S. Army Airborne history.......10 July 1943, during Operation Husky, U.S. Paratroops of the 82nd Airborne Div. make their first-ever combat jump into Sicily. High winds scatter the Airborne Infantry and few make their assigned rallying points. Nevertheless, the paratroops maximized their opportunities, attacking patrols and creating confusion wherever possible.


On 11 July Patton ordered his reserve parachute regiments to drop and reinforce the center. Unfortunately, not every unit had been informed of the drop, and the transports, which arrived shortly after an Axis air raid, were fired on by American Naval units. The 82nd lost 37 out of 144 planes to friendly fire.

 

[santana]

Sergeant Elmer J. Pence adding another miniature Japanese flag on the side of Major Edward Nollmeyer’s P-40 of the 26th Fighter Squadron, 51st Fighter Group. Note the monkey on the right – his left. (The National Archives)

 

[santana]

An American infantryman keeps firing while two other soldiers insert fresh ammunition in their rifles, as steady fire from this sheltered infantry covers the advance near Rosteig, France on the 5 December 1944.

 

[NebrHogger]

Cavalryman being weighed with his kit - possibly pre-WW1. It was captioned "Lusitania"... wherever that might be.

French orderlies with their dogs - 1915.

 

[Conhoon]

Men of the 2nd Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment rest while on a patrol in Burma, July 1944.

Colourised by Doug
(Photo source - © IWM SE 2920)

 

[BravoZulu]

Troops of the 26th Brigade, 9th (Scottish) Division, led by a piper, returning after the attack on Longueval. Montauban, 14 July 1916.

 

[santana]

Belgium, September - 2nd Armored in Europe. 250 men from 20 countries following the tracks and footsteps of the 2nd Armored Division while liberating Belgium in september 1944.