Photos WW2 British & Commonwealth Forces

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Major Roy C.H. Durnford, Chaplain of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, conducting a burial service, San Leonardo di Ortona, Italy, 10 December 1943.
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Infantrymen of the Calgary Highlanders resting on top of Fort de Schooten, Belgium, 4 October 1944.
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Infantry Tank Mk III, better known as the "Valentine"...the most numerous British / Commonwealth production tank of WW2

 

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The Battle of the Bismarck Sea, 1943
The Battle in Brief
In late 1942, Japanese high command ordered troops to be transferred from China to New Guinea, where an Allied offensive was expected, and as a fall back following the Japanese defeat at Guadalcanal. The Japanese 51st Division was to reinforce Lae and 6000 troops were to be transported on eight transports and eight destroyers. The Japanese began their movement under the cover of tropical storms, which struck the Solomon Islands region in late February 1943, and allowed the convoy to travel undetected for several days.
A patrolling American B-24 first reported sighting the convoy, which over the next two days came under fierce attack by American and Australian aircraft, which succeeded in sinking all eight of the Japanese transport vessels and four of the eight destroyers that made up the convoy. At the time, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of Allied forces in the Pacific, proclaimed the Battle of the Bismarck Sea “the most decisive aerial engagement” fought so far in the South West Pacific region.
It has been estimated that somewhere in the region of 3,000-5,000 Japanese troops were killed in the battle, for the loss of three Allied bombers and two fighter aircraft.
A single RAAF Beaufighter aircraft was lost in the attack.
(Text from Australian War Museum)

 

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Cowra POW break out.
More than 300km west of Sydney lies a farming district by the name of Cowra. At first glance it looks like any other ordinary, quiet, country town, but in fact, it is responsible for the bloodiest — and largest — prison escapes in British and Australian War history.
It began operating in June, 1941, specially built to house POWs brought to Australia from overseas.
No. 12 POW Compound, one of the largest in the country, housed 4,000 military personnel and civilians detainees from the Axis powers. Koreans, Chinese and Indonesians were also held here.
It was divided into four areas, each surrounded by barbed wire fences. Prisoners first lived in huts, but eventually included its own store, kitchen, mess huts, showers, shops and vegetable gardens.
On August 5, 1944, a mob of at least 1,104 Japanese POWs staged a mass breakout, attempting to break through the barbed wire fences of the compound with the aid of blankets. Armed with knives, baseball bats, studded clubs with nails and hooks, and garotting cords, they set most of the buildings in the Japanese compound on fire.
359 POWs escaped, while four Australian soldiers and more than 250 Japanese soldiers were killed. Some committed suicide, others were killed by machine guns, while those left standing were captured and sent back to camp within 10 days. It is commonly referred to as the Cowra breakout.(from Herald Sun)

 

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Members of the Watford Womens Home Defense Unit practice their aim on the rifle range, as other members wait their turn to shoot in 1942 (left). This unit was composed mainly of business and professional women who took the rifle instruction during their leisure time. In the left picture, a team of firefighters belonging to the Royal Northern Hospital in Holloway practice to put out Blitz fires in 1941.

 

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Z Special Unit of Australia and New Zealand
Operation Python survivors aboard USS Harder. Identified, left to right, back row: Lindsay Cottee; Frederick Gordon (Fred) Olson; Stan Dodds; Stan Neil. Front row: Bill Jinkins; Alexander (Alec) Chew; Lieutenant Colonel Francis George Leach 'Gort' Chester DSO, OBE; Lloyd Woods.
Operation Python was carried out by members of the Z Special Unit. The objective of the mission was to set up a wireless station near Labuan Point, North Borneo, and undertake covert operations reporting on the sea lane of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Sibutu Passage and the Balabac Strait of the Sulu Sea. The operation was split into Python I and Python II.
Operation Python I was led by Major F Gort L Chester, the Z Special Unit operatives landed along Labuan Point in early October 1943. In January 1944, Bill Jinkins led Z Special Unit operatives on Operation Python II, with the objective of organising the local population for warfare.
Original description and photo sourced by www.awm.gov.au/collection/P11933.001

 

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WW2 - 9 Feb 1944, in Sessa Aurunca, Campania region, Italy. A veterinary officer inspects the teeth of a mule at a mobile veterinary section. (IWM NA 11859 - my colorization).
Mules, bred for their strength and resilience, have played a massive part in Britain’s history Army especially in WW1, and also in WW2.

 

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Bristol Blenheim MK IV gun turret.
The Bristol Blenheim was a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company (Bristol) which was used extensively in the first two years and in some cases throughout the Second World War. The aircraft was developed as Type 142, a civil airliner, in response to a challenge from Lord Rothermere to produce the fastest commercial aircraft in Europe. The Type 142 first flew in April 1935, and the Air Ministry, impressed by its performance, ordered a modified design as the Type 142M for the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a bomber. Deliveries of the newly named Blenheim to RAF squadrons commenced on 10 March 1937.
A development of the Type 142M was the Type 149 which Bristol named the Bolingbroke, retrospectively changed by the Air Ministry to Blenheim Mk IV and the Type 142M to the Blenheim Mk I. Fairchild Canada built the Type 149 under licence as the Bolingbroke. Blenheims Mk I and the Mk IV were adapted as fighters by the addition of a gun pack of four Browning .303 machine guns in the bomb bay. The Mk IV was used as a long range fighter and as a maritime patrol aircraft; both aircraft were also used as bomber/gunnery trainers.
The Blenheim was one of the first British aircraft with an all-metal stressed-skin construction, retractable landing gear, flaps, a powered gun turret and variable-pitch propellers. The Mk I was faster than most fighters in the late 1930s but the advance in development of monoplane fighters made all bombers more vulnerable particularly if flown in daylight, though it proved successful as a night fighter. The Blenheim was effective as a bomber but many were shot down. Both Blenheim types were used by overseas operators, being licence built in Yugoslavia and Finland.

 

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Members of the Watford Womens Home Defense Unit practice their aim on the rifle range, as other members wait their turn to shoot in 1942 (left). This unit was composed mainly of business and professional women who took the rifle instruction during their leisure time. In the left picture, a team of firefighters belonging to the Royal Northern Hospital in Holloway practice to put out Blitz fires in 1941.View attachment 279222

The fire brigade seem to be AWOL!

 

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August 1940.
A little girl donating money. (Messerschmitt Bf 109E-1 flown by Oberleutnant Bartels and shot down by Spitfires on 24 July.)
Ref: RGPoulussen

 

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Taking cover behind a stack of ammunition boxes, an infantryman of H Company, 2nd London Irish Rifles hurls a grenade at a German strongpoint on the southern bank of the River Senio, northeast of Bologna, Italy, March 22, 1945.

 

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Schoolgirls sitting on part of a Nazi bomber which crashed near their farmhouse
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN 1940
Image & Caption thanks I W M

 

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Australian soldier, looks out over a typical New Guinea landscape in the vicinity of Milne Bay on 31 October 1942, where an earlier Japanese attempt at invasion was defeated by the Australian defenders.

 

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Reverend G B Fairhurst, Padre of the 2/5th Queen’s Regiment, talking to two of the men in his battalion and an American soldier in the Anzio bridgehead, 20-21 February 1944.

 

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Helmets factory.

 

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Chaos personified as an RAAF Observer snaps a shot of the mayhem caused by a Beaufighter strafing run on an Imperial Japanese airfield in the South West Pacific during World War Two.

 

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Milk for The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry of Canada. Near Groningen, The Netherlands. April 1945.

 

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An LCG sinking during the Commando raid of Walcheren, Operation Infatuate, Nov 1944

 

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This photo, taken in 1944, in England, shows four "Jedburghs" shortly before heading towards Nazi-occupied territory and risking their lives for our freedom. Most Jedburgh teams were composed of a British agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), an American agent of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and a French agent of the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action (BCRA). Trained in guerrilla warfare (raids, ambushes, demolition, sabotage and assassinations), their motto ("surprise, kill, vanish") summed up their perilous missions. These true heroes were also trained to survive deep inside enemy-occupied territory, confront German troops, and avoid being captured (which meant torture and death) until the arrival of Allied ground forces.