Photos WW2 British & Commonwealth Forces

[BravoZulu]

Three recipients of the Victoria Cross, October 1945, Left to right: Naik Bhabbhagta Gurung of the 2nd Gurkha Rifles, Naik Gian Singh of the 15th Punjab Regiment and Havildar Umrao Singh of the Indian Artillery

 

[BravoZulu]

Men of the 2nd Seaforth Highlanders embarking onto landing craft at Sousse, Tunisia, en route for Sicily, 5 July 1943

 

[BravoZulu]

Men of Y Patrol of the Long Range Desert Group reading mail, Siwa Oasis,1943.

 

[BravoZulu]

RNZAF Lockheed Venturas release their payload over Rabaul, 19 June 1945

 

[BravoZulu]

Commonwealth Joint Air Training Plan, No 20 Service Flying Training School, Cranborne, Near Salisbury, Rhodesia, January 1943. Original colour photograph.

 

[BravoZulu]

Mk VI light tanks knocked out in Cyrenaica in the summer of 1941

 

[BravoZulu]

An operations map at RAF Coastal Command Headquarters at Northwood in Hertfordshire, 9 July 1943

 

[BravoZulu]

British staff officers plotting troop positions during the invasion of Sicily on a wall map in the underground operations room on Malta, 9 July 1943

 

[BravoZulu]

Two time Victoria Cross recipient Charles Upham (NZ) entangled in barbed wire during a failed escape attempt from a German POW camp. The photo was taken by the camp commandment, who declined to shoot him due to his military record and persuasion from other POWs

Charles Upham was the most highly decorated soldier in the Commonwealth forces of WWII, and could arguably be called the bravest soldier of the war. An unassuming stock worker/ valuer at the beginning of the war, he stormed through Crete and the Western Desert amazing and confounding his comrades with his exploits. He won two Victoria Crosses (the only combat soldier ever to do so) and in the opinion of his superiors deserved many more. Captured, he became an escape artist and ended his war in the infamous Colditz POW camp. Shy and reluctant to take credit for his actions, he deflected all praise onto his soldiers and was described as distraught that he had been honoured. He then farmed in North Canterbury until his death in 1994, avoiding the limelight wherever possible

 

[BravoZulu]

Knocked out Infantry Tanks Mk.I and Mk.II, Arras, late May 1940.

 

[RisingStar]

Gurkha Brigade serving as part of the British Army in Tunisia (1943)

 

[BravoZulu]

Knocked out Cruiser Mark VI “Crusader” in North Africa. 1941 or 1942

 

[BravoZulu]

Dutch civilians inspect the knocked out Sherman Firefly in which gunner Fred Butterworth was the first Canadian casualty of the Battle of Groningen on April 13th 1945

Butterworth was less than a fortnight short of his 23rd birthday when the was killed in action. Tank commander Sgt Walter Chaulk was severely burned by the same impact and was awarded the Military Medal

 

[BravoZulu]

July,18 1944: A GI inspects a British Sherman Firefly which has suffered a penetrating hit to its frontal armour and burned out during Market Garden just east of Veghel, Netherlands

 

[BravoZulu]

Australian Matilda II of the 2/9th Armoured Regiment knocked out by a Japanese anti-tank mine on Tarakan in May 1945

 

[BravoZulu]

Knocked out Shermans from the South African 6th Division... Italy 1944

 

[BravoZulu]

Sherman tank crewman 'pulls through' the 75mm gun after an action near Catania, Sicily. 22 July 1943

Bishop 25-pdr self-propelled gun of 142nd Field Regiment in action in Sicily, 27 July 1943

 

[BravoZulu]

M3 Lee (CALEDONIAN) with modified cupola (Commander turret removed) of the 19th Indian Division in Mandalay, Burma - March 1945

 

[BravoZulu]

RAAF ground crew preparing a Taylorcraft Auster at an airfield in Balikpapan, Indonesia

 

[BravoZulu]

Handley Page Halifax B Mark II Series I (Special), DK148 'MP-G' "Johnnie the Wolf", of No. 76 Squadron RAF rests at Holme-on-Spalding Moor, Yorkshire, after crash-landing on return from an operation to Essen on the night of 25/26 July 1943.

The propeller from the damaged port-inner engine flew off shortly after the bombing run, tearing a large hole in the fuselage. The mid-upper gunner immediately baled out, but the pilot, Flight Lieutenant C M Shannon, regained control of the aircraft and managed to bring the rest of the crew back to Holme, although DK148 was subsequently written off.

Two weeks later, Shannon and his crew failed to return from a night operation over Mannheim