Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

[santana]

Air Vice Marshal Sir Hugh Lloyd, KBE, CB, MC, DFC, AOC Mediterranean Allied Coastal Air Forces, next to a Bristol Beaufighter.

 

[santana]

Crewmembers aboard the Essex class aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-16) watch as aircraft land in November of 1943. Some crewmembers can be seen sitting on the wing of a SBD Dauntless dive bomber in the foreground.

A Grumman Avenger, wings already folded, taxiies forwards on the flightdeck to make room as a F6F Hellcat approaches for landing.

 

[santana]

Admiral Graf Spee, Hamburg 1939

 

[santana]

Air traffic control of Fliegerhorst Fürth, Germany 1945.

 

[Conhoon]

A Sikh Motorcycle dispatch rider of the British Indian Army putting on his gas mask during a 50-mile motorcycle trial in Cyprus, 3 March 1942.

 

[Redav]

The Spanish Blue Division

"We went to fight communism, not against the Russians"

Spanish Volunteers: The Blue Division (División Azul)
and The Blue Squadron (Escuadrilla Azul)
Though sympathetic to the Axis cause, General Francisco Franco resisted Hitler’s advances to bring Spain formally into the war even at the height of the Third Reich conquests. Spain had just suffered through a lengthy civil war which had drained its resources, and was therefore in no position to assist in any significant matter. Franco did allow, however, volunteers to serve under German arms on the Eastern front; by doing this he maintained Spain’s neutrality while both repaying the help Germany provided during the Spanish Civil War and continuing his fight against Bolshevism.
On July 13th 1941 the first train with volunteers left Madrid bound for Grafenwohr, Bavaria, where they became the Wehrmacht 250th Infantry Division with a strength of 17,924 Officers and men in four infantry regiments. As German divisions had three regiments, one of them was soon dispersed among the others leaving the 262nd (mainly Barcelona recruits), 263rd (Valencia) and 269th (Seville) regiments. Each regiment had three battalions of four companies. An artillery regiment (the 250th) consisting of three batteries of 150mm guns and one of 150mm guns was added to the division. Also, because among the volunteers there were enough pilots, a squadron was formed entirely of Spanish airmen and equipped with Me 109s and later FW 190s. The “Blue Squadron” received credit for 156 Soviet aircraft.

(Coloured by Doug, Benoit, Ben and Ion)

 

[Conhoon]

American sailors, survivors of the perilous Arctic Convoy QP 14, gather with their mascot, Lassie, at Scapa Flow, Scotland, after returning from Arkhangelsk, Russia. Photograph taken on the 24 September 1942.

Credit: Dan Steele Colour

 

[Conhoon]

9 July 1944
Lancashire Fusiliers crawl cautiously through a cornfield near Saint-Contest, in the Calvados department of Normandy.

Malindine, E G (Captain) No. 5 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit. Image: IWM (B 6754)
Colourised by Doug

 

[BravoZulu]

November, 1916, Machine Gun Corps Lieutenant and a Sergeant wearing trench waders, standing at the entrance of a captured German dug-out under the ruined Church at Beaumont Hamel.

 

[santana]

HMS Howe transiting the Suez Canal, Egypt, 14th July 1944.

 

[santana]

Battle of Britain 85: Anniversary Day
10 July - 31 October 1940
Luftwaffe Heinkel III crew, RAF plotting room staff, RAF pilots waiting at dispersal, Spitfire pilot ready to take off, Hawker Hurricanes sent up to meet the enemy and a crash landed Heinkel III

 

[Redav]

German soldiers are greeted by an old woman with flowers in Friedland, one of the Sudetenland’s municipalities of the Reichsgaus (4. October 1938).

 

[Redav]

An American officer stands next to the official Germany military news commentator, General Kurt Dittmar, he was captured by the 30th Infantry Division at Magdeburg, Germany, April 1945. After his capture, Dittmar was held by the Americans and British until his release in 1948.

 

[Conhoon]

July 1918
"One of the three tanks which were put out of action in the fight for Hamel in France, photographed on July 5th, 1918, the day after the operation.

Note the French Tricolour on the roof of the house. It was put there by an officer of the 28th Battalion on the morning of the battle to mark the capture of the position" (Official caption). Australian soldiers and British tank crewmen stand beside 8th Battalion 'H52' Number 9001, one of the three British Mk V tanks which were put out of action in the fight for Hamel. The left track has been ‘thrown’ off the tank.
(Photo source - Australian War memorial - E03843)
Colourised by Doug - Colourising History

 

[Conhoon]

Soldiers of "The Rajputana Rifles", British Indian Army, Defeat & Mop up Japanese Resistance in Pyawbwe, Rangoon WW2

The Rajputana Rifles is the oldest rifle regiment of the Indian Army, having been founded in 1775. It traces its origins to the British Indian Army, when six previously existing regiments were amalgamated to form six battalions of the 6th Rajputana Rifles. The regiment won several gallantry awards during World War I and World War II. In 1945, the numeral designation was dropped from the title. The regiment was transferred to the newly independent Indian Army in 1947.
Since India's independence, the regiment has been involved in a number of conflicts against Pakistan, as well as contributing to the Custodian Force (India) in Korea under the aegis of the United Nations in 1953–54 and to the UN Mission to the Congo in 1962. As a rifle regiment, it uses a bugle horn as its insignia, the same as the British Light Division, but unlike its British counterparts, the Rajputana Rifles march at the same march pace used in the Indian Army as a whole.
Circa: 1945

 

[Conhoon]

British wounded coming back during the Battle of Hazebrouck. Near Merris, April 1918.

Photo © IWM Q 10293
Colourised by Doug

 

[BravoZulu]

Pennsylvania class battleship USS Arizona (BB-39) in formation with other Atlantic Fleet battleships, during gunnery practice, circa 1917.

 

[BravoZulu]

Gneisenau class battleship (or battlecruiser) Scharnhorst, before the fitting of the "Atlantic bow", pre 1939

 

[santana]

The crew of a 320th Bomb Group B-26 Marauder nicknamed "Texas Tornado" in front of their aircraft.

 

[BravoZulu]

The crew of a Staghound armoured car of 1st King's Dragoon Guards shelter from the sun beneath a parasol fitted to the turret of their vehicle, 13 July 1944.