Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

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24 March 1945
Robert Capa October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954
Combat photographer Robert Capa at an airfield at Arras, France just before taking part in a jump with paratroopers of the US 17th Airborne across the Rhine into Germany.

"Hungarian war photographer, photo journalist and also the companion and professional partner of photographer Gerda Taró. He covered five wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and the First Indochina War. He documented the course of World War II in London, North Africa, Italy, the Battle of Normandy on Omaha Beach and the liberation of Paris.

'Operation Varsity'
The first planes carrying the 17th Airborne took off shortly after 0700, with the last getting aloft just before 0900. The airborne lift included a total of 9,387 paratroopers and glider-borne soldiers, carried aboard 72 C-46s, 836 C-47s, and 906 CG-4A gliders. This, combined with the British airborne armada of nearly 800 aircraft and 420 gliders, carrying over 8,000 soldiers, stretched nearly 200 miles and took thirty-seven minutes to pass a given point. The two formations rendezvoused in the skies near Brussels, Belgium, before proceeding to the drop zones 100 miles away. In addition, nearly 1,000 Allied fighters escorted the transports. For those watching below, including GEN Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, it was an impressive display of Allied might. MG James M. Gavin, commander of the 82d Airborne Division, who had never witnessed a major airborne operation from the ground, called it “an awesome spectacle.”

 

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A Polish army battalion on maneuvers with Swedish made Bofors 37-mm anti-tank guns during August 1939

The Polish guns were used during the German and Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. Wołyńska Cavalry Brigade equipped with the Bofors 37 mm antitank gun beat the German Panzer Divisions in one of the first battles of the invasion; the Battle of Mokra.

At the time, German armor consisted mainly of light Panzer I and Panzer II tanks which were vulnerable to the Bofors gun. Early models of the Panzer III and Panzer IV could also be penetrated at ranges up to 500 m. After Poland was occupied, most of the guns fell into German and Soviet hands. The weapon was considered obsolete by 1941 during Operation Barbarossa.

 

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Douglas A-20C-BO Havoc at Langley Field, Virginia (USA), 1942.

 

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No 303 Squadron of Polish Spitfires in flight formation 1940/41.

 

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In 1945, U-858 was taken over by a U.S. Navy crew.
The German captain had surrendered the sub at sea four days earlier and was then ordered to proceed to Fort Miles, Delaware.
The transfer was watched over by a Sikorsky HNS-I, the first helicopter to enter U.S. military service.

 

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British Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Tovey(1885-1971) of the Royal Navy, in a posed portrait holding a set of binoculars, December 1943.

 

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Supermarine Spitfire Mark Vs of No 417 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force flying over the Tunisian desert - April 1943

 

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German Messerschmidt Bf-109 fighter with "desert" camouflage, in Libya (North Africa), 1942.

 

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Major Daniel F. Riva, 24, of Hartford, Conn., fortress squadron commander talking with one of his waist gunners S/Sgt. John Leahy, 20, of Norwood, Mass England.

 

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Luftwaffe anti-aircraft artillery unit together with the 'squadron-dog'on an airfiled in occupied France 1940/41

 

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Benjamin Hayes "Vandy" Vandervoort (March 3, 1917 − November 22, 1990) was an officer of the United States Army, who fought with distinction in World War II. He was twice awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. He was portrayed by John Wayne in the 1962 war film The Longest Day.

Vandervoort transferred to the newly established paratroopers in the summer of 1940, and was promoted to first lieutenant on 10 October 1941. Promoted to captain on 3 August 1942, almost eight months after the American entry into World War II, he served as a company commander in the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), commanded by Colonel James M. Gavin. He was promoted to major on 28 April 1943,[2] a few weeks after the 505th had been assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, then commanded by Major General Matthew Ridgway, and served as operations officer (S-3) in Colonel Reuben Tucker's 504th Parachute Regimental Combat Team in the Allied invasion of Sicily and in the landings at Salerno.

Promoted to lieutenant colonel on 1 June 1944, he was the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, 505th PIR, during the American airborne landings in Normandy. Vandervoort led his battalion in defending the town of Sainte-Mère-Église on 6 June in "Mission Boston", despite having broken his ankle on landing. During "Operation Market Garden" in September 1944, he led the assault on the Waal Bridge at Nijmegen while the 3rd Battalion, 504th PIR, made the assault crossing. Ridgway described Vandervoort as "one of the bravest and toughest battle commanders I ever knew".At Goronne he was wounded by mortar fire, so was unable to take part in the 82nd Airborne Divisions' advance into Germany in 1945.

He was promoted to colonel on 7 July 1946, and left the Army on 31 August. After studying at Ohio State University he joined the Foreign Service in 1947. He served as an executive officer in the Department of the Army in 1950-54, acting as joint political adviser to the commanding general United Nations forces and UN ambassador, Korea, in 1951-52, and studied at the Armed Forces Staff College (now the Joint Forces Staff College) in 1953. He served as a military attaché at the US embassy in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1955-58, and was assigned to the Department of State in 1958-60. He then served in the Executive Office of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), from 1960–66, also serving as a consultant on politico-military affairs to the US Army Staff in 1960, and as a plans and program officer on the Army Staff, Department of Defense, in 1964.

Benjamin Vandervoort died on November 18, 1990 at the age of 73 years at a nursing home from the effects of a fall.

He had two children with his wife Nedra; a son (Benjamin Hayes Vandervoort II) and a daughter (Marlin Vandervoort).

 

[BravoZulu]

Paratroopers inside the fuselage of a Whitley aircraft at RAF Ringway, August 1942.

 

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Men of the Northumberland Fusiliers in St Eloi, France, March 1916.

 

[Conhoon]

According to IWM, this photo shows Squadron Leader P. A. Hunter (far left), the CO of No. 264 Squadron RAF, briefing his pilots by one of the Squadron's Boulton-Paul Defiants at Duxford, Early in May 1940.

(Moved to Duxford on the 10th May)
The aircraft is Defiant Mk.I N1585, PS-A in which, on 24th August 1940, S/Lr Hunter and his gunner LAC FH King, were last seen in pursuit of Ju88's, following an attack on Manston. He and King were not heard from again.
Squadron Leader Philip Algernon Hunter, DSO was 27 years old and is remembered on the Runnymede Memorial, panel 4.
On the 29th May 1940, the Squadron and its new fighter, the turret-armed Boulton-Paul Defiant, had made history. In two incredible afternoon patrols over Dunkirk-Calais area, twelve aircraft of 264 squadron, in two sweeps destroyed two M.E 109’s, fifteen Me 110’s, nineteen Ju. 87’s and one Ju. 88, a very creditable total of thirty seven. It was the best score that any RAF squadron ever had; it left everyone in awe, including the participating aircrews. Nicholas Cooke, who himself claimed eight victories that day, told one reporter “It was like knocking apples off a tree!”.
The following telegram was received that evening. “The Air Officer Commanding in Chief sends sincere congratulations to No. 264 Squadron on their magnificent performance in shooting down over 30 enemy aircraft to-day without loosing a single pilot, one of whom brought his aeroplane back safely minus both elevators and one aileron.”
(Original image : IWM CH196)
Colour by Rui Manuel Candeias

 

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27 May 1942
Czechoslovak commandos Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík trained in Britain for the daring assassination of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich in May 1942. (“Operation Anthropoid”)

Trained by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), the pair returned to the Protectorate, parachuting from a Handley Page Halifax (RAF 138 Squadron), on 28 December 1941. They lived in hiding, preparing for the assassination attempt.
On May 27, 1942, as Heydrich’s car travelled into Prague, Czech Staff Sergeants Gabčík and Kubiš peppered the Nazi official with gunfire and tossed a hand grenade into his car. Heydrich died a week later of complications caused by an infected wound.
Although “Operation Anthropoid” had succeeded, the hiding place chosen by the Czech commandos – the crypt beneath the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius – was betrayed. On June 18, 1942, 800 German troops and SS laid siege to the cathedral where Gabčík, Kubiš and five other resistance fighters were holed up. The Germans burned, flooded and fired into the crypt for three hours until the last four commandos – realizing their imminent capture – committed suicide, but not before shouting out to their oppressors:
“We will not surrender. Never!”
The commandos’ fellow citizens paid dearly for Heydrich’s assassination. On June 10, 1942, three days after his death, the Nazis razed the Czech town of Lidice; they killed 340 civilian residents. That September the church’s elders were tried and executed by the Gestapo. Then, at the nearby fortress of Terezin, all 263 Czechs (previously arrested for having aided the commandos) were shot to death in one day – all in reprisal.
Color by Jecinci

 

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Five Czech pilots with No.46 Squadron at RAF Sherburn-in-Elmet, North Yorkshire, April 1941.

F/O Karel Mrázek, F/Sgt. Prokop Brázda (KIFA 24/4/42), F/Sgt. Josef Gutvald (KIFA 27/5/41), F/Sgt. Jiří Řezníček and F/Sgt. Ladislav Uher (KIA 30/6/41).
(Royal Airforce Museum)
Colourised by Doug

 

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he Gunnery Officer Lieutenant Kazimierz Hess (29 years old) and leading seaman Józef Gajda in the Director Control Tower aboard the Polish Navy destroyer ORP Piorun during a patrol in the Western Approaches, 1940.

 

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colorful picture of a Kawasaki Ki-61.

Japanese troops in Manchuria

 

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Japanese soldiers in Saigon

Japanese submarine

 

[uktabber]

GREAT pics, thanks for posting!!