Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

[Conhoon]

War Correspondent Alan Wood is seen typing his despatch, while Airborne troops in the background consult a map during Operation 'Market Garden', Holland, 18 September 1944.

 

[Conhoon]

Roland C.IIa (Li) ’III’

 

[Conhoon]

British Mk. Vlll Cromwells and a Dingo(on the left) rolling in Aalst during Operation Market Garden, 18 september 1944

 

[BCNTM]

Panther & Sdkfz 251 near Warsaw, August 1944

looks far to small for a 251 more like a 250?

 

[BravoZulu]

With all the comms aerials I'm pretty sure it's a 251/6 command vehicle but I'll stand to be corrected

 

[Conhoon]

Supporting troops of the 1st Australian Division walking on a duckboard track near Hooge, in the Ypres Sector. They form a silhouettte against the sky as they pass towards the front line to relieve their comrades, whose attack the day before won Broodseinde Ridge and deepened the Australian advance.’ 5 October 1917.

 

[Conhoon]

Captain Caiger of the British Army Pigeon Service

The National Pigeon Service (NPS) was a volunteer civilian organization formed in Britain in 1938 as result of representations made to the Committee of Imperial Defence and the British Government by Major W.H.Osman. During 1939-45 over 200,000 young pigeons were given to the services by the British pigeon breeders of the NPS. The birds were used by the Royal Air Force and the Army and Intelligence Services, Special Section of the Army Pigeon Service (which was formed in World War I by Lt. Col. A.H.Osman). During three and a half years of World War II, 16,554 war pigeons were parachuted onto the continent. Many NPS pigeons received the Dickin Medal.

PhotoSource: HULTON ARCHIVE/Colourised Piece of Jake

 

[Conhoon]

21 September 1944
Three German prisoners are brought in on the bonnet of an Army Film and Photographic Unit jeep by Sgt Bert Hardy, AFPU official photographer in Hamont-Achel Belgium.

On September 20, 1944, during the early hours the municipality of Hamont was liberated in the Second World War by the 1st Battalion of the British Suffolk Regiment. The Kings Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) took care of the municipality of Achel.

The liberation of Hamont and further North Limburgian villages has to be seen in a wider perspective. The large scale operation was called Market Garden and started on September 17th. The troops of the liberators were of the British 3rd Division. It was the intention that the allied forces in Belgium would join their fellow countrymen by advancing through North Belgium towards Nijmegen. In order to liberate Hamont and its surroundings first of all a bridgehead had to be constructed at the Canal in Kaulille. On September 19th at 02:00 a surprise attack and crossing at the canal was realised by two infantry companies of the Lincoln and Ulster Rifles. Thereafter the bridgehead could be secured. During the night of 19 to 20 September the East Yorkshires cleared the area of the Hork of enemy resistance.
Sergeant Hardy served as a war photographer in the Army Film and Photographic Unit (AFPU) from 1942 until 1946: he took part in the D-Day landings in June 1944; covered the liberation of Paris; the allied advance across the Rhine; and was one of the first photographers to enter the liberated Belsen to record the suffering there.
Near the end of World War II, Hardy went to Asia, where he became Lord Mountbatten's personal photographer and later became chief photographer at Picture Post.
(Photo source - © IWM (B 10166)

 

[Conhoon]

For @Bombardier
No. 1 Gun, 75mm howitzer of 'D' Troop, 2nd Battery, 1st Airlanding Light Regiment, 1st Airborne Division in the Oosterbeek perimeter.
September 21, 1944

The crew depicted here are (from left to right) Gunner Miller, Gunner Davey, Bombardier Allsop and Sergeant Prentice.
An airborne crew was expected to be able to assemble their gun for firing within four minutes of landing.
Note the church at the Benedendorpsweg on the background.
(Photo source - © IWM BU 1101)
No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit - Sgt. D.M.Smith
(Colourised by Royston Leonard)

 

[Conhoon]

Sappers Charles Grier and wounded Dick Robb both from 'B' troop, 1 Para Squadron, Royal Engineers.

This picture was taken at 1530hrs on Wednesday the 20th September 1944, in a builders yard near their last position held at the Van Limburg Stirum School in Arnhem.

The British 1st Parachute Brigade had been ordered to enter Arnhem on 17 September 1944 and, besides its own three battalions, had been allotted various smaller units; for example the 1st Parachute Squadron, Royal Engineers. This was commanded by 31 year-old Major Douglas Murray, with orders to render harmless any demolition charges found under the railway bridge at Oosterbeek, and the ship bridge and road bridge in Arnhem. Murray’s company was split into smaller groups and attached to others, so that more units would have engineers at their disposal during the advance.
West of Arnhem, the rest of the division fought on around Oosterbeek. With Arnhem now securely in their hands, the Germans could concentrate their full force on Urquhart's men. The remaining paras fought on for five more days, and on September 25 the 1st Airborne Division was evacuated. Of the 11,000 men who had landed on September 17, only 2,300 made it safely back to Allied lines.

Too often overlooked in accounts of the fighting at Arnhem, the defence of the Van Limburg Stirum schoolhouse by 60 brave men was a crucial element of Frost's gallant four-day defence of the bridge. Without the stand made by Major Lewis and others, the Germans would have been able to concentrate their full force on Frost, forcing him from his position sooner. This would have allowed the Germans to move more men against 1st Division forces fighting around Oosterbeek, and might have ended with even more men winding up on casualty lists or as POWs. Although it ultimately ended in a British defeat, the fight at the schoolhouse should be remembered as one of the greatest examples of a defence in urban terrain ever carried out by the British army.
As a footnote to the epic defence of Arnhem Bridge, (renamed after the war by the Dutch, 'Frost Bridge') S.S. General Harmel, commanding the 10th S.S. Panzer Division 'Frundsberg', congratulated the wounded with Lieut Col Frost with words, 'You command very fine soldiers. Not even at Stalingrad have I seen such bravery or such stubborn resistance.' Such was the respect that the panzer grenadiers had for our wounded that Frost says that they were kind, chivalrous, even comforting, as they carried our men out of the burning building.
(Colourised by Doug)

 

[Conhoon]

September 1944:
During the attack on Armhem a British soldier working with the Canadian troops in Holland, points his rifle at a road sign marked with their destination. They are (left) Private George Pope from Derbyshire and Private Dennis Townsend from Yorkshire.

(Color by Jecinci)

 

[Conhoon]

The Battle of Arracourt, Lorraine, France, between 18–29 September 1944

Panzer Grenadiers board a Pz.V 'Panther' Ausf G of the Panzer Brigade 111 in the town of Bures, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France on their way to Arracourt, 20 September 1944.

 

[Conhoon]

22 September 1944. A Universal Carrier crew of the 8th Battalion, Rifle Brigade hands out chocolate to Dutch civilians during the advance of 11th Armoured Division in the Netherlands.

The 8th Battalion, Rifle Brigade was formed in early January 1941 by the re-designation of the 2nd Battalion, London Rifle Brigade, spent most of its existence in the United Kingdom and took part in the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, as part of the 29th Armoured Brigade in the 11th Armoured Division, and saw action in the North West Europe Campaign.

(Photo source - © IWM B 10245)
Laing (Sgt)
No. 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit

 

[BravoZulu]

Sappers Charles Grier and wounded Dick Robb both from 'B' troop, 1 Para Squadron, Royal Engineers.

This picture was taken at 1530hrs on Wednesday the 20th September 1944, in a builders yard near their last position held at the Van Limburg Stirum School in Arnhem.

View attachment 190256

The British 1st Parachute Brigade had been ordered to enter Arnhem on 17 September 1944 and, besides its own three battalions, had been allotted various smaller units; for example the 1st Parachute Squadron, Royal Engineers. This was commanded by 31 year-old Major Douglas Murray, with orders to render harmless any demolition charges found under the railway bridge at Oosterbeek, and the ship bridge and road bridge in Arnhem. Murray’s company was split into smaller groups and attached to others, so that more units would have engineers at their disposal during the advance.
West of Arnhem, the rest of the division fought on around Oosterbeek. With Arnhem now securely in their hands, the Germans could concentrate their full force on Urquhart's men. The remaining paras fought on for five more days, and on September 25 the 1st Airborne Division was evacuated. Of the 11,000 men who had landed on September 17, only 2,300 made it safely back to Allied lines.

Too often overlooked in accounts of the fighting at Arnhem, the defence of the Van Limburg Stirum schoolhouse by 60 brave men was a crucial element of Frost's gallant four-day defence of the bridge. Without the stand made by Major Lewis and others, the Germans would have been able to concentrate their full force on Frost, forcing him from his position sooner. This would have allowed the Germans to move more men against 1st Division forces fighting around Oosterbeek, and might have ended with even more men winding up on casualty lists or as POWs. Although it ultimately ended in a British defeat, the fight at the schoolhouse should be remembered as one of the greatest examples of a defence in urban terrain ever carried out by the British army.
As a footnote to the epic defence of Arnhem Bridge, (renamed after the war by the Dutch, 'Frost Bridge') S.S. General Harmel, commanding the 10th S.S. Panzer Division 'Frundsberg', congratulated the wounded with Lieut Col Frost with words, 'You command very fine soldiers. Not even at Stalingrad have I seen such bravery or such stubborn resistance.' Such was the respect that the panzer grenadiers had for our wounded that Frost says that they were kind, chivalrous, even comforting, as they carried our men out of the burning building.
(Colourised by Doug)

The Van Limburg Stirum School as it stood before the Battle. Stubbornly defended by men of the 1st Parachute Squadron and 3rd Parachute Battalion throughout almost the entirety of the defence of Arnhem Bridge

The remains of the Van Limburg Stirum School.

 

[Conhoon]

Saturday, September 23, 1944

Squadron Sergeant Major Watt, HQ, B Squadron, 1st Wing, Glider Pilot Regiment, takes aim with an American M1 carbine from the first floor front balcony of the Hartenstein Hotel, Oosterbeek, near Arnhem in The Netherlands.

(The photograph was taken by Sergeant D M Smith, Army Film and Photographic Unit)

Sergeant Dennis Smith, wrote: "We have had a very heavy shelling this morning, September 23rd and now the situation is serious. the shelling is hellish. We have been holding out for a week now. The men are tired, weary and food is becoming scarce, and to make matters worse, we are having heavy rain. If we are not relieved soon, then the men will just drop from sheer exhaustion".
Squadron Sergeant Major Watt escaped back to the UK across the river. He was posthumously awarded the US Bronze Star in January 1947 for his actions.
Company Sergeant Major Watt died on 5 December 1944, aged 25 years old, he was amongst a party of Glider Pilots en-route to India in December 1944, when Dakota FL588 from 24 Squadron RAF Transport Command, based at RAF Hendon, crashed on a snowy ridge in Ariege, near Mijanes in the Pyrenees, Southern France.
23 Airmen were onboard, 20 of which belonged to the GPR. Fifteen other men onboard died as a result of the crash.
He is now buried in the Mazargues War Cemetery, Marseilles.
The British 1st Airborne Division headquarters had been established in the Hotel during 'Operation Market Garden' and it is now the Airborne Museum ‘Hartenstein’.
(Photo source - IWM BU 11220)
Army Film and Photographic Unit - Smith D M (Sgt)
(Colourised by Doug)

 

[Conhoon]

Sunday 24 September 1944
Men of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division (possibly the 2nd Battalion) resting in a village in Holland.

(Sometime between the end of Operation Market Garden and the beginning of Operation Aintree. Operation Aintree was the Allied undertaking to take Overloon and Venray in the German-occupied Netherlands (30 September/18 October 1944).

(Photo source - © IWM B 10292)
Laing (Sgt)
No. 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit

 

[Jaybe]

Crashlanded German L-20 (Former LZ-59), Norway, May 3, 1916

 

[Conhoon]

A Panzer II Ausf.C in the streets of Przemyśl in south-eastern Poland in September 1939. The vehicle most probably belongs to the 5. Panzer-Division. The photo itself is one of a series which was made commercially available to soldiers of the Division shortly after the end of the Polish campaign. The vehicle still retains the early solid white Balkenkreuz and also sports a second, large white cross running over its upper side and turret, for aerial identification.

The light Panzer IIs first saw combat during the campaign in Poland in 1939, where they were used in the role of a main battle tank. Combat losses were high and from May 1940, during the invasion of Belgium, Holland and France, they were largely relegated to reconnaissance roles.

Colourised Colour by RJM
Image/Text Robin Schafer/Iron Cross Magazine.

 

[Conhoon]

These images, scanned from old glass negatives which had surfaced in northern France, were believed to have been taken by a local amateur photographer in 1916.

They showed British and a few Australian soldiers, in formal or informal poses, during or just before the most murderous battle in the history of the British Empire – Battle of the Somme.

 

[Conhoon]

"A group of British troops at Fleurbaix, 5 kms. south-west of Armentieres. May 1916." © IWM (Q 649)