Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

[Conhoon]

A Canadian soldier writes a letter home from the front line in May 1917.

(PA-001399/LIbrary and Archives Canada)
Colourised by Doug

 

[santana]

American Indian Code Talkers​

The idea of using American Indians who were fluent in both their traditional tribal language and in English to send secret messages in battle was first put to the test in World War I with the Choctaw Telephone Squad and other Native communications experts and messengers. However, it wasn’t until World War II that the US military developed a specific policy to recruit and train American Indian speakers to become code talkers.

What is a code talker? A code talker is the name given to American Indians who used their tribal language to send secret communications on the battlefield. Most people have heard of the famous Navajo (or Diné) code talkers who used their traditional language to transmit secret Allied messages in the Pacific theater of combat during World War II. But did you know that there were at least 14 other Native nations, including the Cherokee and Comanche, that served as code talkers in both the Pacific and Europe during the war

 

[santana]

The famous shot of P-51D Mustang, SX-I, 44-14495 “Dallas Doll”. Pilot Lt. Frank Bouldin Jr of the 352nd FS - 353rd FG, sitting at hardstand after rainfall.

 

[santana]

Gen. Phillippe Leclerc, foreground second right, stands with a captured German officer, left, after the liberation of Paris in 1944 during World War II.


Seventy-five years later, surprising color images of the D-Day invasion and aftermath bring an immediacy to wartime memories.


They were filmed by Hollywood director George Stevens and rediscovered years after his death.

 

[Conhoon]

The barber is kept busy after arrival in port.
A sailor is having his hair cut aboard Polish Navy destroyer ORP Piorun by one of his shipmates. Four more are waiting, 1944.

 

[Connaught Ranger]

View attachment 420352

Gen. Phillippe Leclerc, foreground second right, stands with a captured German officer, left, after the liberation of Paris in 1944 during World War II.


Seventy-five years later, surprising color images of the D-Day invasion and aftermath bring an immediacy to wartime memories.


They were filmed by Hollywood director George Stevens and rediscovered years after his death.

I believe the German officer is the Commander of the Paris Garrison Dietrich Hugo Hermann von Choltitz

Dietrich von Choltitz - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Redav]

Military parade of the Italian Army in a large show of force during Hitler's state visit to Italy, 1938.

 

[Redav]

Wehrmacht soldiers operating a Pak anti-tank gun during the early invasion of Poland, 1939.

 

[Redav]

Fallschirmjäger Bruno Sassen (1918-2006) Bearer of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross awarded for an act of extreme bravery Awarded for his actions on the Leningrad front in late 1941. During this time he and his squadron were deployed to the bridgehead at (Vyborgskaya), with orders to hold their positions to the last man., The Soviet trenches were in places only 20-30 meters away, and the result was having to deal with constant and dangerous Soviet attacks. In that time, Sassen and his squadron, armed with 2 MGs, were able to repel all hostile attacks over the course of 33 days.

He especially distinguished himself in 1941, when the Soviets occupied an anti-tank ditch just 4 meters from the German positions. Subsequently, "Sassen" independently decided to eliminate them. With 5 men from his squad, he encircled the hostile forces in the anti-tank ditch, taking some of them prisoner.

After the war he studied veterinary medicine in Hanover. And he died on June 19, 2006 at the age of 88.

 

[Redav]

Facade of the hotel (Meurice) in Paris used as the headquarters of the (German Army) during the occupation of France, 1940.

 

[Redav]

Battleship Musashi operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy being together with her brother Yamato the heaviest and most powerful warships ever built in history.

 

[BravoZulu]

French Dragoons escorting German prisoners in the Nord department of northern France. Late August, 1914

 

[Conhoon]

 

[CorkyM]

An M10 tank destroyer from the 803rd Tank Destroyer Battalion firing on a German pillbox on the other side of the Sauer River near Echternach, Luxembourg, supporting an advance by the 5th Infantry Division's 11th Infantry Regiment. Signal Corps. 7 Feb 1945

607th Tank Destroyer Battalion crossing the Saale River in Saalfeld, Germany, April 14, 1945

 

[Conhoon]

28 January 1918
Manchester Regiment officers (possibly 10th Btn) enjoying a drink of alcohol and music from a gramophone outside their elephant-back shelter at Givenchy.

Note the tambourine by the 'Decca' gramophone and the wooden 'rhythm bones' in their hands
(Photo source -© IWM Q 6470)
Brooke, John Warwick (Lieutenant) (Photographer)
Colourised by Doug

 

[CorkyM]

Battle of the Bulge, December 16, 1944 to January 25, 1945

 

[CorkyM]

The battle for Peleliu: The 1st Marine Division heads for the Peleliu beaches as their LVTS churn past the offshore line of LCI gunboats, 15 September 1944

 

[Conhoon]

31 January 1945
US infantryman examines a Pz.39H 735(f) Hotchkiss 1935 H modified 39 with a canon SA 38, which was abandoned in Ostheim, France.

(Photo credit - Nara III-SC 199865)
Colourised by Doug

 

[BravoZulu]

Cecil Beaton of 213 Squadron RAF, stands in front of a Hawker Hurricane, its roundel embossed with a wasp motif. Likely taken in North Africa with a backdrop of the first Battle of El-Alamein in, Spring of 1942.

 

[Conhoon]

Battlecruiser HMS Hood on speed trials off the Isle of Arran, 1920. HMS Hood remained the largest warship in the world for 20 years after its commissioning. The ship was lost on May 24 , 1941 in a battle with a German battleship