Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

[BravoZulu]

A colourised photograph of a Royal Scots Fusilier taking aim with his Thompson submachine gun in Burma, 1944

 

[Conhoon]

Polish Navy

 

[Conhoon]

Polish Navy

 

[Bombardier]

Great photos @Conhoon

 

[berkut76]

Polish Navy

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Judging by the dates on the photos, I assume that the Kriegsmarine didn't destroy the Polish Navy during the 1939 campaign?

 

[Conhoon]

Judging by the dates on the photos, I assume that the Kriegsmarine didn't destroy the Polish Navy during the 1939 campaign?

Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe did not completely destroy the Polish Navy, some of the ships fought for a long time, and some until the end of the war, destroying the enemy ships, shielding the supply convoys and performing many other tasks. In addition, many ships (including ORP "Garland" or ORP "Conrad") were rented by the Royal Navy.

 

[TIGREDELAIRE]

can one say then that they were a free navy, just like the squadrons that flew with the real air force and the free battalions that fought in almost every scenario? very interesting that story and very rarely told!

 

[Conhoon]

can one say then that they were a free navy, just like the squadrons that flew with the real air force and the free battalions that fought in almost every scenario? very interesting that story and very rarely told!

They were part of the Polish Armed Forces subordinate to the Polish government in exile. They performed tasks together with their Allies on almost every front. Just like Polish squadrons in RAF or Polish infantry squads, armored units or paratroopers fighting together with British, Australian, Canadian and other allied nations on the fronts in Africa and Europe.
As my father's brother once said (I do not remember if he used these words exactly but that was their sense): "We helped Brits, they helped us and somehow it went. It was important that we fought together with the enemy." I regret now that I did not listen to him at that time, but I was very young at this time.

 

[Conhoon]

 

[BravoZulu]

An SAS jeep (Sr/Nº4822478) in the Gabes-Tozeur area of Tunisia. The vehicle is heavily loaded with jerry cans of fuel and water, and personal kit. The ‘gunner’ is manning the .50 cal Browning machine gun, while the driver has a single Vickers ‘K’ gun in front, and a twin mounting vickers behind. 1943.(Source – IWM – Sgt. Currey, No 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit) (Colourised by Paul Reynolds)

Pilot Officer Albert Gerald Lewis DFC (aged 22) in his Hawker Hurricane Mk.1 (VY-R) P2923 with 85 Squadron RAF at Castle Camps, RAF Debden’s satellite airfield in Cambridgeshire. July 1940.
Albert Gerald Lewis (10 April 1918 – 14 December 1982) was a South African born fighter ace during the war, who was featured in a ‘Life’ magazine article about the Battle of Britain. Lewis received his Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in July 1940 and his citation read that during the Battle of France on May the 19th, he shot down five enemy aircraft before he himself was shot down over Lille.
He then joined No.249 Squadron RAF on the 15th of September 1940. One the same day he shot down a Heinkel He.111 and on the 18th, a Messerschmitt Bf. 109 (his twelfth confirmed enemy aircraft).
On the 27th of September he claimed 6 kills (three Bf 109s, two Bf 110s and a Ju 88), two probables and one damaged. While on a patrol on the 28th of September he was shot down and he baled out of his Hurricane over Faversham and was taken to Faversham Cottage Hospital, blind for two weeks, and with shrapnel in his legs with severe burns on the face, throat, hands and legs. He returned to the Squadron in December, 1940, having been promoted Flight Lieutenant on the 29th of November. He was flying by the 17th of January 1941, and became “A” Flight Commander, and was awarded a bar to the DFC.
His final tally was 18 kills.

USAAF Capt. Dewey E. Newhart
“Mud N’ Mules” Republic P-47D-15-RE Thunderbolt LH-D s/n 42-76141 350th Fighter Squadron, 353rd Fighter Group, 8th Air Force
Capt. Newhart was killed in action on the 12th of June 1944 during a mission over Northern France.
He was leading the squadron down to strafe an enemy truck convoy near Saint-Saëns, Normandy when he was jumped by 8-10 Bf.109s whilst flying a P-47D LH-U(s/n 42-26402) named “Soubrette”, he was hit and radioed that he was attempting to make landfall. Before he could escape, he was attacked by two more fighters, and was shot down and killed.
The pictured aircraft was re-assigned to Capt. Lonnie M. Davis who renamed it “Arkansas Traveler” but retained the mule artwork out of respect for Newhart.

Major General Erwin Rommel, and an early Panzer IV (Nº321) of the 7th Panzer Division in France, May 1940.
Erwin Rommel, is pictured here with his Leica III rangefinder camera.

Flying Officer Philip Ingleby 137140, the navigator of an Avro Lancaster B Mark III of No. 619 Squadron RAF based at Coningsby, Lincolnshire, seated at his table in the aircraft. February 1944.
Taking off at 10.50 hrs on the 7th August 1944, the de Havilland Mosquito VI (s/n NT202) AJ-N of No. 617 Squadron, was on a training exercise from R.A.F. Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire. It had completed three runs over the Wainfleet Sands bombing range and at 11.12 hrs. whilst pulling up in a climbing turn to port the starboard engine failed, followed immediately by structural failure of the starboard wing. Out of control, the Mosquito plunged into shallow water by the foreshore. The Pilot F/O. Warren Duffy (aged 21) and Navigator P. Ingleby (Aged 23) were both killed.
(Source – © IWM CH 12288)

 

[vonFeilitzsch]

Abandoned Sturmtiger of Sturm-Mörser Kompanie 1001 with a broken track in Hützemert. April 1945.

 

[vonFeilitzsch]

 

[BravoZulu]

World War I

A British soldier helps a wounded German prisoner walk along a railway track

A group of men from the Royal Regiment of Artillery

Three officers making themselves comfortable, near Miraumont-le-Grand, France. Steel helmets had many more uses than the War Office might have intended

King George V sitting next to an army commander, Thiepval, France on the site where Thiepval Chateau once stood

Soldiers after crossing the River Somme

Artillery stripped trees and a signboard pointing the way for pack transport

Artillerymen outside dugouts

 

[vonFeilitzsch]

Canadian soldiers in the destroyed town of Falaise (Augunst, 1944)

 

[Conhoon]

5th Podhale Rifles Regiment, 22nd Mountain Infantry Division, Poland 1938

 

[Conhoon]

High-mountain Infantry Company of the Polish Army, Zakopane, Poland, 1919

 

[vonFeilitzsch]

Germans stand guard with an armored car in front of the Chancellor’s Palace in Berlin during the German Revolution 13 May, 1919.

 

[Bombardier]

Battle of Amiens. Tanks advancing. Prisoners bring wounded wearing gas masks. Aug 1918. Library and Archives Canada/PA-002951 (modified from the original). Colourized by the Vimy Foundation and Canadian Colour.

The Battle of Amiens – Vimy Foundation

www.vimyfoundation.ca

 

[TIGREDELAIRE]

5th Podhale Rifles Regiment, 22nd Mountain Infantry Division, Poland 1938

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I think, if I'm not wrong, that the Podhale is the most famous of the Polish units, if I'm wrong, please correct me

 

[Conhoon]

I think, if I'm not wrong, that the Podhale is the most famous of the Polish units, if I'm wrong, please correct me

I am sorry to write this, but both before the Second World War and now the Podhale Rifles was not the most famous unit.
I will not hide that - I have great sentiment for this unit.