Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

[Conhoon]

Really excellent photos @Jaguar !

 

[Conhoon]

For @Jaguar


11 December 1944

Brazilian Infantrymen take time out to read their mail in fox holes on the Italian front.
L-R: Pvt. Edgar Vasques Rodrigues, and Pvt. Mario Feliciano Gauza, both from Rio de Janeiro.

Photo by Thompson. Brazilian Expeditionary Force Fifth Army, Italy.
(Color by Reinaldo Elias)

 

[Conhoon]

German Soldiers Surrender to the Red Army in East Prussia, 1945.

The East Prussian Offensive was a strategic offensive by the Soviet Red Army against the Germans on the Eastern Front. It lasted from 13 January to 25 April 1945, though some German units did not surrender until 9 May. The Battle of Königsberg was a major part of the offensive, which ended in victory for the Red Army.

 

[berkut76]

German Soldiers Surrender to the Red Army in East Prussia, 1945.

View attachment 197758

The East Prussian Offensive was a strategic offensive by the Soviet Red Army against the Germans on the Eastern Front. It lasted from 13 January to 25 April 1945, though some German units did not surrender until 9 May. The Battle of Königsberg was a major part of the offensive, which ended in victory for the Red Army.

Once again my grandfather was there. The casualties on both sides were monstrous. Every German / Polish city on the Baltic coast was a de facto fortress. Even heavy and indiscriminate artillery bombardment and air strikes couldn't bring most of the castle-like structures down. So, infantry, armo and artillery units (yep 45mm AT that have been previously withdrawn from service have been rushed to the front) had to fight house to house battles with German defenders who were just as stubborn as the Soviet troops in Stalingrad.

 

[Conhoon]

Krysia Trześniewska (1929 - 1943) 14-year-old Polish girl.

December 13, 1942 she was brought to KL Auschwitz from Zamość.
Murdered in the KL Auschwitz German death camp. Registered as a political prisoner, camp number 27129. Pictures taken during registration in KL.

 

[Conhoon]

Bedouin Warrior, ca.1898-1914

 

[santana]

17 December 1939

'The Battle of the River Plate'

The 'Admiral Graf Spee' was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser ('pocket battleship') commissioned in 1936. The Graf Spee was more heavily gunned than any other cruiser.

The Graf Spee had sunk several merchant ships in the Atlantic before being attacked by a British search group consisting of the cruisers 'Exeter', 'Ajax', and 'Achilles'. The damage on 13 December 1939 to the 'Graf Spee' forced her to seek refuge in the neutral port of Montevideo, Uruguay for several days to make repairs.

The Uruguayan authorities followed international treaties and, although granting an extra 72 hours stay over the normal 24 hours, required that Admiral Graf Spee leave port by 20:00 on the 17th December or else be interned for the duration of the war.

As it was thought that a large fleet of British ships awaited them out at sea, the commander of the Graf Spee, Kapitän zur See (Captain) Hans Langsdorff made the decision to scuttle the ship, largely to spare his crew further casualties. At the limit of Uruguayan territorial waters she stopped, and her crew was taken off by Argentine barges. Shortly thereafter, planted charges blew up 'Admiral Graf Spee' and she settled into the shallow water.

Hans Langsdorff committed suicide three days later on the 20th December in his hotel room in Buenos Aires. He lay on the Admiral Graf Spee's battle ensign and shot himself.

 

[santana]

"February 26, 1945: T/4 Ralph Valtin, a PW interrogator with the 1st Infantry Division, speaks with a German battalion commander who surrendered his strongpoint at Kreuzau, Germany, when ammunition ran out."

Rolf Wiegelmesser born 1925 in Hamburg, Germany
As a teenager, Valtin, his mother, and his two brothers fled Nazi Germany due to their Jewish and Quaker heritage and fled to America.
Quakers in Pennsylvania secured his family's place in America, providing housing and scholarships for all three boys at the George School. The Quaker connection is what eventually led Rolf and his brother, Heinz '49, to Swarthmore.

After just one year at Swarthmore, Valtin was drafted into the U.S. Army during the height of World War II. As a member of the 16th Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, he participated in the assault on Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion.
He returned to Swarthmore in 1946, but with a new last name. While in the Army, he changed his last name from Wiegelmesser to Valtin, a variation of his mother's maiden name.
Once back on campus, Valtin returned to the soccer pitch and again exceled, earning a pair of All-America honors to finish his athletic career. As a senior, he scored 11 goals, a program record that stood for approximately 30 years.
Valtin's strong play earned him a spot on the U.S. Olympic soccer team, sending him to the 1948 London summer games. One of the few Swarthmore alums ever to participate in the Olympic games, Valtin scored a goal in an exhibition match against the team from the newly formed State of Israel.

He passed away at the age of 93 on Aug. 1, 2018.

 

[santana]

Sergeant James Albert Simcox, US 4th Armored Division from South Bend, Indiana, shows off a young puppy named 'Oscar' who had been given to Simcox's tank crew by a grateful French Civilian. The photo was taken on the December 16, 1944 at Fenetrange in France.

 

[santana]

The wedding of Captain Leonard Johnson of the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery and his new wife Josephine de Vries at the Pepergasthuis Church in Groningen, Netherlands. June 30, 1945

They became the “Kissing Couple“ in the picture and poster for the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

The term "war bride" refers to the estimated 48,000 young women who met and married Canadian servicemen during the Second World War. These war brides were mostly from Britain, but a few thousand were also from other areas of Europe: the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy and Germany.

 

[santana]

An aerial photo of the South Dakota-class fast battleship USS Indiana (BB-58) in the Pacific on January 27, 1944.

Steaming with Task Force 58.1, en route to attack Taroa Island airfield, Maloelap Atoll, Marshall Islands.

She is wearing Measure 32 Design 11D dazzle camouflage.

This photo was taken by an aircraft from carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6).

 

[santana]

A German Frogman, captured while swimming with others along the Rhine River near Remagen, in an attempt to destroy US First Army bridges.
Captured by the men of the US 164th Engineer Battalion at Kripp in Germany, March 18 1945

His equipment consists of a rubber helmet and gloves, oxygen mask, canvas jacket lined with chemicals that give off heat when immersed in water, rubber pants, canvas shoes on which are fastened hard rubber web feet.

On March 8, the Americans had seized intact the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, and troops and tanks were pouring across the Rhine.
In desperation, Hitler ordered frogmen to blow up the span. By now, the Americans had built a bridgehead on the east bank of the Rhine nine miles deep and fifteen miles long. So to even reach the Ludendorff, the frogmen would have to swim for perhaps eight miles behind American lines. Moreover, the Rhine temperature would be near freezing, causing the frogmen to get cramps and perhaps drown. It would take a near miracle for the mission to succeed.

An hour after darkness descended on March 17, nine days after the first squad of American infantrymen had dashed across the Ludendorff, eleven furtive figures, burdened with heavy loads of explosives, stole along the banks of the Rhine and into the rapid current ten miles north of the bridge. Untersturmführer Schreiber, leader of the frogmen, had been a champion swimmer while in a Berlin University; he and each of his men wore skin-tight rubber suits, rubber foot fins, and carried an apparatus to breathe underwater.

After superhuman effort in battling the strong current and the frigid river temperature for three hours, the frogmen had negotiated nearly five miles behind enemy lines. Suddenly, when two miles from the bridge, the nearly exhausted swimmers were virtually blinded by powerful searchlights that played over the water from both banks of the Rhine. A torrent of machine-gun and rifle fire peppered the helpless Germans. Several of them were hit by bullets and disappeared below the surface. Those who survived struggled to reach the bank and were captured—including the crestfallen Schreiber, who had been fully aware that Adolf Hitler had sent him and his men on a suicide mission.

The surviving combat swimmers were interrogated immediately, with the commander of the 99th Infantry Division, Major General Walter E. Lauer, describing an injured frogman as "... a fanatical Austrian Nazi ... who only started to talk after 6 hours"

 

[santana]

Glenn Miller died December 15, 1944

Born in 1904 in Iowa, bandleader and musician Glenn Miller inspired the World War II generation. He was one of the most popular bandleaders in the late 1930s and early 1940s with such songs as "Moonlight Serenade" and "Tuxedo Junction." In 1942, Miller enlisted in the U.S. Army and was assigned to lead the Army Air Force Band. He boosted the morale of the troops with his many popular songs before mysteriously disappearing on a flight from England to Paris, France. Miller's original recordings continue to sell millions of copies. He died on December 15, 1944. Mysterious Death
Miller headed up the U.S. Army Air Force Band, which gave numerous performances to entertain the troops during World War II. He was stationed in England in 1944 when he learned that his band was to go to Paris. On December 15, Miller boarded a transport plane headed to the newly liberated French capital. He intended to make preparations for his group's new series of concerts there, but he never arrived.

 

[santana]

U.S. Marines display the American flag for a photograph shortly after securing a beachhead during the liberation of Guam, July 21, 1944.

The Japanese occupation of Guam lasted for approximately 31 months. During this period, the indigenous people of Guam were subjected to forced labor, family separation, incarceration, execution, concentration camps and forced prostitution. Approximately 1,000 people died during the occupation, according to later Congressional committee testimony in 2004. Some historians estimate that war violence killed 10% of Guam's then 20,000 population.

The United States returned and fought the Battle of Guam from July 21 to August 10, 1944, to recapture the island from Japanese military occupation. More than 18,000 Japanese were killed as only 485 surrendered. Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, who surrendered in January 1972, appears to have been the last confirmed Japanese holdout, having held out for 28 years in the forested back country on Guam. The United States also captured and occupied the nearby Northern Marianas Islands.

 

[santana]

US Army M1919 Browning machine gun crew (possibly the 2nd Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment) in action against German defenders in the streets of Aachen on the 15th October 1944.

(located at the entrance of the Court House at Adalbertsteinweg in Aachen. The Machine gun is firing toward Heinrichsallee/Kaiserplatz, near the Adalbert Church)

The German city of Aachen, located near the Belgian border, was a pivotal battleground for American soldiers breaching the fortified Siegfried Line during the latter part of 1944.

The defenders of Aachen were made up of elements of the 3rd Panzer Division and a few Waffen SS. Kampfgruppen. The ancient city was hallowed ground for Germany, as the birthplace and site of the coronation of Charlemagne, Aachen was the home of the Holy Roman Empire. As the first major city on German soil to face invasion from the Allies, Hitler personally directed that Aachen be held — at all costs.

In the thickest of the fighting were the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, supported by the 745th Tank Battalion. They attacked from the southern suburbs, with the 30th Infantry Division moving into the city from the north. But resistance was fierce; in a matter of days the 30th Infantry Division sustained more than 2,000 casualties. Elements of the 29th Infantry Division had to be called in to help. When the last remaining defenders surrendered on October the 21st, the Germans had lost over 5,000 casualties and 5,600 prisoners. U.S. losses were put at 5,000 killed, wounded or missing.

In spite of more than 170 tons of bombs and nearly 10,000 rounds of artillery shells fired into the city, the City's great cathedral that housed the tomb of Emperor Charlemagne emerged intact.

 

[santana]

14 December 1944

M4A3(76) Sherman tank firing to smoke out a German field entrenchment between the buildings at the crossroads of Schillingsstrasse and Trierbfchweg in Gürzenich in the Rhineland.

Apparently, this tank was in service with 629th Tank Destroyer Battalion because of shortages of equipment.

(NB. this could be a M4A3(75) rearmed with the 76.)

 

[santana]

David Vivian Currie VC - the South Alberta Regiment Major who managed to seal off the Falaise Pocket

After four days of heavy battle (August 18-21), Currie and his brave men destroyed seven tanks, twelve PaK-43 guns, and 40 vehicles. Around 300 Germans were killed, while 2,100 were captured. The St-Lambert-sur-Dives village was taken and the Falaise Gap was closed, leaving 50,000 German soldiers in a trap with no way out.
On November 30, 1944 he was awarded the Victoria Cross for the courage and devotion he showed during the prolonged period of heavy fighting in the village of St-Lambert-sur-Dives.

 

[santana]

In the early morning of 18 December 1944, the US 'Task Force Mayes' (Major James Mayes), 14th Cavalry Group (Mechanized) were ambushed on the road between Poteau and Recht in the Ardennes, by the German SS.'Kampfgruppe Hansen', Panzergrenadier Regiment 1 LSSAH who were supported by paratroopers from the 3.Fallschirmjäger-Division, later they posed for the SS-Kriegsberichter among the wreckage after the attack.

A couple of German war correspondents arriving at the scene of these events shortly afterward, took some shots that have gone down in documentary history.
By this time it seemed that the entire US. Army in the Ardennes was on the verge of collapsing.
("The 1st SS Panzer Division in the Battle of the Bulge")

 

[santana]

In the early morning of 18 December 1944, the US 'Task Force Mayes' (Major James Mayes), 14th Cavalry Group (Mechanized) were ambushed on the road between Poteau and Recht in the Ardennes, by the German SS.'Kampfgruppe Hansen', Panzergrenadier Regiment 1 LSSAH who were supported by paratroopers from the 3.Fallschirmjäger-Division, later they posed for the SS-Kriegsberichter among the wreckage after the attack.

A couple of German war correspondents arriving at the scene of these events shortly afterward, took some shots that have gone down in documentary history.
By this time it seemed that the entire US. Army in the Ardennes was on the verge of collapsing.
("The 1st SS Panzer Division in the Battle of the Bulge")

Here is an original video of that ambush

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[Connaught Ranger]

Filmed a while after the attack in the first 20 secs or so of the film the Germans are seen walking back in the direction to their own lines.