Photos WW2 British & Commonwealth Forces

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Personnel of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry advancing past a 'Sherman' tank. 19 July 1943.
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The Cruiser Mk V Covenanter III (A13 / Mk III) was pre-war design which was rushed into production in 1939.
As a consequence a number of technical problems manifested themselves, none of which were satisfactorily overcome.
Thus, the 1,770 or so Covenanter gun tanks which were completed were destined to remain in the UK as training vehicles.
Late in the war a number of Covenanter hulls were converted into bridge-layers and did see some service overseas in both Europe and the Pacific.

 

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British Infantrymen enter Salerno the "easy" way...on the back of a camouflage painted Sherman Tank!
September 10th, 1943.

 

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Allied armour assembles in the morning mist on the banks of the River Rhine ahead of the crossings, in March 1945.
In the foreground are Churchill AVREs of the 79th Armoured Division.

 

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Gunners of the Royal Artillery use rachet-spanners and muscle power to maneuver this 155mm gun M1 "Long Tom" onto its wheeled carriage ready for transportation.
Italian theatre, circa 1944.

 

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he River Rubicon was famously crossed by Julius Caesar in January, 49 BC, which precipitated the Roman Civil War, which ultimately led to his downfall.
Some 1993 years later, these tanks of the 2nd RTR also crossed the Rubicon, after engineers had lowered the banks to facilitate it.

 

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Major-General Charles M. Wesson was the head of the US Army's Ordnance Department, 1938-42.
In September 1941, some three months before the United States officially entered WW2, he made a clandestine inspection tour of various military establishments in the UK.
He can be seen here, in civilian dress, (the man in the darker overcoat) accompanied by other miltary dignataries, observing a Churchill Mk IV going through its paces on the ranges near Aldershot.
(IWM)

 

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Terence "Terry" Spencer, was a Royal Air Force fighter pilot and flying ace of the WW2, he was born on 8 March 1918 during a Zeppelin raid in BEDFORD, (where I lived for some thirty years) England.
Initially in the Royal Engineers, due to heavy losses
during the Battle of Briton he transferred to the Royal Air Force. He completed his entire flying training in the United Kingdom,
His first operational unit was No. 26 Squadron at Gatwick, in November 1942. Then to No 165 Squadron at Culmhead as a Flight Commander at the beginning of February 1944.
He was then posted to No. 41 Squadron as Officer Commanding A Flight, on 28 May 1944, where he flew Supermarine Spitfire Mk. XIIs, which he described as much faster and nicer to handle. Between 23 June and 28 August 1944, he claimed seven V-1 flying bombs destroyed. The British press dubbed him as "Tip 'em up Terry"....he was the first man to topple a Flying bomb.
In early September 1944, Spencer led a section of four pilots on an armed reconnaissance over Belgium where they encountered two of the Luftwaffe's highest-scoring aces, Emil "Bully" Lang, the Commanding Officer of II/JG26 (173 victories), and Alfred Gross (52 victories), in FW190s over Tirlemont. Although one of his section was killed, the two aces were shot down, Lang killed and Gross seriously wounded.
(Lang had had mechanical trouble with his aircraft. When he finally took off from Melsbroek he had difficulty raising his undercarriage. Ten minutes later RAF Spitfires of 41 Squadron intercepted them. Lang was last seen diving vertically with his undercarriage extended. His Fw 190 A-8 (W.Nr. 171 240) “Green 1” hit the ground and exploded near St Trond....Spencer had shot him down)
On the 26 February, he was hit by flak in the Rheine-Lingen area of Germany and captured. Just over a month later, he escaped by bicycle, and subsequently motorcycle, with another ex-No. 41 Squadron pilot, Squadron Leader K. F. "Jimmy" Thiele, in a Steve-McQueen-style getaway, in which the pair made it back to Allied lines.
On returning he was shot down again, this time by rocket fire while strafing a trawler in Wismar Bay. Everybody was convinced this was it, but miraculously he succeeded in baling out and deploying his parachute at a height of just 30 feet, which he miraculously survived, only to be captured again. The successful jump has since been credited by the Guinness Book of Records as having been the lowest authenticated survived bail-out on record.Spencer was injured and hospitalised, but liberated by advancing Allied armies approximately two weeks later. Spencer was awarded an immediate Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for his exploits and, in 1947, was also awarded the Territorial Efficiency Medal and the Belgian Croix de Guerre with Palm.In later life based outside Johannesburg, he and his wife started a successful aerial photography business based around a Piper Cub. Terry had tasted danger and coundn't resist in 1952, working for LIFE Magazine in some of the most dangerous places on earth.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/195...jvn6SNVwEBGv0sOWJfx4o0qhYCQd_9gw&__tn__=-]K-R
He roamed around Africa and photographed brutal conflicts on the continent including South Africa under apartheid and the Congo Revolution. If Life Magazine wanted a difficult job doing the inevitable cry would be, “where's Terry?” Amongst his dangerous assignments he went to Vietnam, Cuba and Rhodesia.
Terence "Terry" Spencer, DFC (18 March 1918 – 8 February 2009) RIP
Photo Source - Pinterest

 

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Sergeant F. Greenway camouflaging a truck with olive branches, 1 Canadian Army Tank Brigade Tactical Headquarters, near Treglio, Italy, 6 December 1943.
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Private A.R. Quinn, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (P.P.C.L.I.), with captured accordion, Gambarie, Italy, September 1943.
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The Cruiser Mk V Covenanter III (A13 / Mk III) was pre-war design which was rushed into production in 1939.
As a consequence a number of technical problems manifested themselves, none of which were satisfactorily overcome.
Thus, the 1,770 or so Covenanter gun tanks which were completed were destined to remain in the UK as training vehicles.
Late in the war a number of Covenanter hulls were converted into bridge-layers and did see some service overseas in both Europe and the Pacific.

View attachment 269576

Yes, not many countries tried the engine at the back, radiator at the front approach.....what a waste of time and resources....

 

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Lance-Corporal A. Kerelchuk and Private H.M. Sigurdson, both of The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise's), guarding the northern approach to a bridge across the Hase River, Meppen, Germany, 8 April 1945
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Infantrymen of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise's) eating dinner in a barnyard, Veen, Germany, 7 March 1945.
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A Churchill tank leaves a tank landing craft (TLC 121) during a combined operations exercise at Thorness Bay on the Isle of Wight, 27 May 1942

 

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Original wartime caption: Pte. Alty of Atherton, 5/7 Gordon Highlanders, has his Xmas dinner in Holland. 51 (Highland) Div.
IWM B 13126

 

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DIEPPE 19 August 1942 picture of Canadian commandos after their raid on Dieppe France.
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Allied "top brass" cluster around the bonnet (hood) of Monty's Humber Snipe staff-car which is doubling as a map table, Sicily, July 1943.
Present are General Sir Harold Alexander, Supreme Commander, Mediterranean Theatre, US General Walter Bedell-Smith, together with senior staff officers....
...plus of course the two principal protagonists...Generals Montgomery and Patton!

 

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THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORMANDY, 1944.
A rescued kitten on the turret of a Sherman tank, 14 August 1944.
Creator: Jones (Sgt), No. 5 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit
Source: © IWM B 9157

 

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Lance-Corporal George Gagnon, 14th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery (R.C.A.), aboard a Landing Ship Tank fusing hand grenades to be used on D-Day. Southampton, England, 4 June 1944.
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The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, with men of 50th (Northumbrian) Division who took part in the D-Day landings. Behind the Prime Minister is General Sir Bernard Montgomery, Normandy, 22 July 1944.
Source: IWM (original colour)