Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

[BravoZulu]

An unidentified USO performer entertaining a crowd of American soldiers aboard a troop transport ship, May, 1944.

 

[BravoZulu]

Roger Godfrein, 1 of 6 survivors of a massacre in which German forces locked 643 citizens (including 500 women and children) inside and set fire to a church in Oradour-sur-Glane, France, on June 10, 1944

 

[BravoZulu]

Valentine tanks of 29th Armoured Brigade, 11th Armoured Division photographed by Lieutenant Tanner (War Office Official Photographer) in the village of Rottingdean in Sussex, 25 June 1942.

 

[BravoZulu]

April 1941. New Zealand soldiers outside Nafplio, Greece, await the evacuation order to board the ships that will take them to Crete or the Middle East.

 

[BravoZulu]

May 1941. German paratroopers in Crete during Operation "Mercury" (Unternehmen Merkur) - Chania Sector

 

[BravoZulu]

Italian M13/40 medium tanks ready to be delivered to the army

 

[BravoZulu]

Women mechanics march to their work area, circa 1944-45. This group appears to include both Navy WAVES and Women Marines. Planes present include PBM-3D flying boats, OS2U floatplanes (right distance) and a TBM torpedo plane (right foreground).

 

[Conhoon]

The crew of the Polish Navy destroyer ORP Piorun training the laying of their QF 4 inch Mk V anti-aircraft gun for practice, 1940.

 

[NebrHogger]

Aircraft at a Japanese naval base, 1945. Removing propellors from captured or surrendered Japanese planes was standard practice at the time.

 

[santana]

During Operation Varsity, paratroopers of the 17th Airborne Division take a ride on a Churchill Tank through Münster, Germany in March of 1945.
The 17th Airborne participated in its first and only airborne operation dropping alongside the British 6th Airborne Division as part of Operation Varsity. Their mission was to capture the village of Diersfordt and clear the rest of the Diersfordter Wald of any remaining German forces in order to aid the Allied ground forces in their advancement.


The “Golden Talons” of the 17th Airborne completed their mission and helped make Operation Varsity a success, but the cost of their first jump would be high with these brave paratroopers suffering a total of 1,346 casualties in five days of fighting…including 430 killed in action….Gone, but not forgotten

 

[Conhoon]

Portrait of an unidentified African-American soldier of the Union Army photographed during the American Civil War 1861-1865.

A large contingent of African Americans served in the American Civil War. The 186,097 Black men who joined the Union Army included 7,122 officers and 178,975 enlisted soldiers. Approximately 20,000 black sailors served in the Union Navy and formed a large percentage of many ships' crews.
Credit: julius.colorization

 

[santana]

Soviet troops and tanks on the streets of Vienna. April 1945

 

[Conhoon]

Private Harold Edward Newman, TX1192, of the 2/33rd Australian Infantry Battalion stops for a drink during a patrol between Nauro and Menari, Papua, New Guinea, November 1942.

Harold was born in Hobart, Tasmania, in April 1916, and grew up in the township of St Mary's, on Tasmania's north-east coast.
He enlisted the day after he turned 24 in 1940. Eight weeks later in June, the close-knit community held a farewell party for Harold and another local, Private Robert Cooke.
The 2/33rd Infantry Battalion was one of three formed in the United Kingdom on 27 June 1940 to create the 25th Infantry Brigade. It initially saw action in the Near East, in Palestine.
It was likely as a result of action here - possible during the northward push in Lebanon and Syria in June 1941 - that Harold was reported as missing. Further details would come to hand a few weeks later that he was no longer missing, but rather had been wounded in action.
The 2/33rd returned to Australia for a period of leave and training before embarking for Papua in early 1942 to reinforce Australian units already fighting along the Japanese along the Kokoda track.
It was here, high up along the track in the Owen Stanley ranges, that Harold was caught by photographer Thomas Fisher in this casual photo, as he fills an empty tin from a stream near Menari, along the Kokoda track.
The remainder of his wartime experience beyond this image remains unclear, largely owning to his service records not having been made accessible. The WWII nominal rolls however note that he was made a Prisoner of War, though this is not verified by other databases. If it was true, he survived the ordeal, for he was discharged with the rank of corporal on 29 March 1945.
Aged 72, Harold died on 8 Feb 1989 and was buried in his home town of St. Mary's, Tasmania.
The original black and white photographic of this evocative scene has been used as the cover image for the latest edition of the Australian War Memorial's 'Wartime' magazine, always well worth a read: http://ow.ly/3ZmE50JVtZN
Photographer: Thomas Fisher

 

[BravoZulu]

Lance Corporal Jacob Feinbuch, a sniper of the Jewish Brigade, with his rifle in the Italian town of Mezzano, in the Ravenna region, on March 24, 1945.

 

[BravoZulu]

Soldiers from the 96th Infantry Division gather around an M4 Sherman (US Army 3099276) of 'A' Company 763rd Tank Battalion on Okinawa, April 1945.

 

[BravoZulu]

Aircraft carrier Akagi off Osaka, Oct 15th, 1934. Aircraft are Mitsubishi B2M. Mitsubishi commissioned Blackburn to design a carrier based torpedo-bomber to be produced under license, and so the B2M was born based on the Blackburn Ripon.

 

[TIGREDELAIRE]

Private Harold Edward Newman, TX1192, of the 2/33rd Australian Infantry Battalion stops for a drink during a patrol between Nauro and Menari, Papua, New Guinea, November 1942.

View attachment 402173
Harold was born in Hobart, Tasmania, in April 1916, and grew up in the township of St Mary's, on Tasmania's north-east coast.
He enlisted the day after he turned 24 in 1940. Eight weeks later in June, the close-knit community held a farewell party for Harold and another local, Private Robert Cooke.
The 2/33rd Infantry Battalion was one of three formed in the United Kingdom on 27 June 1940 to create the 25th Infantry Brigade. It initially saw action in the Near East, in Palestine.
It was likely as a result of action here - possible during the northward push in Lebanon and Syria in June 1941 - that Harold was reported as missing. Further details would come to hand a few weeks later that he was no longer missing, but rather had been wounded in action.
The 2/33rd returned to Australia for a period of leave and training before embarking for Papua in early 1942 to reinforce Australian units already fighting along the Japanese along the Kokoda track.
It was here, high up along the track in the Owen Stanley ranges, that Harold was caught by photographer Thomas Fisher in this casual photo, as he fills an empty tin from a stream near Menari, along the Kokoda track.
The remainder of his wartime experience beyond this image remains unclear, largely owning to his service records not having been made accessible. The WWII nominal rolls however note that he was made a Prisoner of War, though this is not verified by other databases. If it was true, he survived the ordeal, for he was discharged with the rank of corporal on 29 March 1945.
Aged 72, Harold died on 8 Feb 1989 and was buried in his home town of St. Mary's, Tasmania.
The original black and white photographic of this evocative scene has been used as the cover image for the latest edition of the Australian War Memorial's 'Wartime' magazine, always well worth a read: http://ow.ly/3ZmE50JVtZN
Photographer: Thomas Fisher

that? Have you ever drunk water from an infested creek in a rusty can?

 

[BravoZulu]

Submarines from the Eighth Submarine Flotilla and Ninth Submarine Flotilla putting to sea from the depot ship HMS Pandora in Harwich from 1915 to 1918.

 

[santana]

American soldiers pose for the camera with their weapons, during the Battle of the Bulge in January of 1945.

Lasting six brutal weeks from December 1944 to January 1945, the Battle of the Bulge took place during frigid weather conditions, with some 30 German divisions attacking battle-fatigued Allied troops across 85 miles of the densely wooded Ardennes Forest in Belgium.

Called “the greatest American battle of the war” by Winston Churchill, the clash was Hitler’s last major offensive in World War II against the Western Front. It would prove to be costly for the US Army, which suffered roughly 90,000 casualties and lost 19,000 men killed in action.

 

[santana]

German soldiers posing with gas masks in the Vosges Mountains in 1918.

Recalling the 'man-eating mountain' during World War I, the Battle of Hartmannswillerkopf (French: bataille du Vieil-Armand) was a series of battles during the First World War, in which they fought for the control of the Hartmannswillerkopf peak in Alsace in 1914 and 1915.

The peak was a pyramidal rocky spur in the Vosges mountains. From the top of the 956-meter-high (3,136-foot) Hartmannswillerkopf mountain, known as "Vieil Armand" in French, both the German and French military declared the mountain a summit of its strategic importance. Both sides had to "stay" in that position no matter what the cost. The Germans and French dug almost 90 kilometers (56 miles) of trenches and established positions on the mountain. In some places, the enemies were only a few meters away, they could look into each other's eyes and hear what the other side was saying.

Thirty thousand soldiers died in a hideous static war Futile attempts were made to drive the opponent off the mountain. It took four years and earned the mountain its terrible nickname: "They called it a man-eating mountain," Alsatian writer Pierre Kretz told DW as he climbed the white cross on the summit.