Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

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Task Force Gypsy jumps out of a C-47 of the ‘Jungle Skippers’ at Appari, 0900 June 23, 1945
During the bitter fighting for Northern Luzon, Philippines in the final months of World War II, the 37th Infantry Division (Ohio National Guard) was tasked flanking the main Japanese positions and seizing the coastal town of Aparri. General Walter Krueger decided to commit elements of the 11th Airborne Division to the attack, which he hoped would ultimately surround one of the last major Japanese army formations on the island (Shobu Group with about 50,000 men).

 

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Two Panzer V 'Panther' tanks from the 5th SS Panzer Division (Wiking) as seen through the lens of an SF14Z scissors periscope from another Panther in the summer of 1944. The Division was fighting desperately to preserve the shattered front and hold back the Red Army when the Soviet summer offensive, codename 'Operation Bagration', broke like a thunderclap.

 

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Infantry of the 50th (Northumberland) Division and Sherman tanks of 44th Royal Tank Regiment, 4th Armoured Brigade, move through Reviers, Calvados in Normandy. 12 June 1944.

 

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28 May 1944 - Mortar carriers of 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers pass a wrecked German Nebelwerfer rocket launcher near Ceprano in Italy

 

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Hawker Typhoon pilots of No. 181 Squadron RAF leave the briefing tent at B2/Bazenville (a few miles inland from Gold Beach), for a midday sortie over the Normandy battlefield. June 1944

 

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Sherman tanks of the British 8th Armoured Brigade (possibly 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards) and a Chevrolet truck leading ambulances through Amsterdamerstraße in Kevelaer, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. 4 March 1945.

 

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Andrew Edward McKeever DSO, MC & Bar, DFC, stands beside Fokker D.VII (OAW) 8493/18 while it was in the custody of No.1 Squadron, Canadian Air Force at Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, UK. 1919.

By the beginning of 1919, 792 Fokker D.VIIs had been surrendered to the British, French, Belgian and American armies.

 

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Sgt. Joe Lobit, a 13th Airborne Paratrooper and veteran of the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment with his collection of German knives that he had acquired while serving in Germany during the final months of the war. The photo was taken in August 1945 at Camp Pittsburg, an embarkation camp in France prior to the Soldier's departure for home.

Among the items are the m1884/98 III, used on the Mauser kar 98k, two SA-Service Daggers of which the one on the right has the inscription; “Alles für Deutchland”. The soldier is holding a NCO RAD hewer, which was part of the dress uniform and was ceremonial. The RAD Hewer was officially approved for wear in August 1934 and was issued to RAD-Unterführer (EM/NCO’s). The hewer has nicely textured stag horn grips. The blade bears the well known RAD motto 'Arbeit Adelt' (Labour ennobles). Second on the left is a Spanish Navaja folding knife.

 

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The first four Polish recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross of No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron wearing their awards after a presentation ceremony by Air Marshal Sholto Douglas at RAF Leconfield, 15 December 1940. Left to right - Squadron Leader Witold Urbanowicz, Pilot Officer Jan "Donald Duck" Zumbach, Pilot Officer Mirosław "Ox" Ferić and Flying Officer Zdzisław Henneberg.

 

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Saipan Landings - June 15, 1944
Marines of the 2nd Marine Division are crawling under enemy fire to their assigned positions. The wet 'Leatherneck' took a dunking when the landing craft he came in on was hit by Japanese mortar fire.

 

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30 March 1945
A British Humber Scout Car Nº F-196184 and a Cruiser A34 Comet Nº T-335042 "Cobra" both of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, 129th Armoured Brigade, 11th Armoured Division drive through a captured town in North Germany.

 

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March 1944

The iconic photograph of a smoking Bombardier/Togglier in the nose cone of a B-26.

 

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Captured during Kursk battle

 

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Captured during Kursk battle

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Captured German tanks were usually put back into service as part of protection force for HQ or other high value targets in the rear. They got glowing reviews by the Soviet crews due to much better ergonomics, radios, and optics compared to the Soviet T-34s.

 

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M4 Sherman tank of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade, advancing into Caen, Normandy. 10 July 1944.

 

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New Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) recruits undergoing rifle drill training at Buckhurst Hill, Essex, England. 1st July 1940.

 

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'Z Special Unit', New Britain. 4 April 1945. Private Leon Ravet of Parramatta, NSW (left), and Pte Bernard Kentwell of Cronulla, NSW, on the alert while on patrol duty with their Owen sub machine guns. Both men served with the 19th Battalion (South Sydney Regiment)

Z Special Unit—also known as Special Operations Executive (SOE), Special Operations Australia (SOA) or the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD)—was a joint Allied special forces unit formed during the Second World War to operate behind Japanese lines in South East Asia. Predominantly Australian, Z Special Unit was a specialist reconnaissance and sabotage unit that included British, Dutch, New Zealand, Timorese and Indonesian members, predominantly operating on Borneo and the islands of the former Netherlands East Indies.

 

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Raising clouds of dust and sand, a squadron of A6M ‘Zero’ fighters prepares to take off from Rabaul, the main Japanese airbase in the South Pacific. New Britain Island, said to be 1943.

 

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'Z Special Unit', New Britain. 4 April 1945. Private Leon Ravet of Parramatta, NSW (left), and Pte Bernard Kentwell of Cronulla, NSW, on the alert while on patrol duty with their Owen sub machine guns. Both men served with the 19th Battalion (South Sydney Regiment)
View attachment 184455

Z Special Unit—also known as Special Operations Executive (SOE), Special Operations Australia (SOA) or the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD)—was a joint Allied special forces unit formed during the Second World War to operate behind Japanese lines in South East Asia. Predominantly Australian, Z Special Unit was a specialist reconnaissance and sabotage unit that included British, Dutch, New Zealand, Timorese and Indonesian members, predominantly operating on Borneo and the islands of the former Netherlands East Indies.

Owen gun

The Owen machine carbine, colloquially known as the Owen gun, was an Australian submachine gun designed by Evelyn Owen, Vincent Wardell and Freddie Kunzler from 1931 to 1939 and produced from 1941 to 1945 by Lysaght's Works and the Lithgow Small Arms Factory. The only mass-production submachine...

guns.fandom.com

 

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US Airmen inspect a damaged Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-4 (KM+EY) of III. Gruppe Schnellkampfgeschwader 10 (III./SKG 10) (3rd Group, 10th Fast Bomber Wing) at El Aouina airport, Tunis, Tunisia, May 1943.