Photos WW2 British & Commonwealth Forces

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An RAF Morris LRC (light reconnaissance car) alongside a bullock cart on an airfield in the Azores, January 1944. Original colour photo.

 

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New Guinea Campaign. October 1942. Australian troops of the 2/31st Battalion, 7th Division, heat up a meal on the Kokoda Track near Menari.

 

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Fleet Air Arm Fairey Swordfish in elevator 2 of the aircraft carrier USS Wasp, May 1942.

 

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Fleet Air Arm Grumman Martlet coming up in the lift of HMS Formidable.

 

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A 3-inch mortar of the 5th Hampshire Regiment in action at Salerno, Italy. 15 September 1943

 

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19 August 1942. The failed raid of Dieppe (Operation Jubilee). Exhausted commandos, arriving in Newhaven.

The Commando with the torn trouser leg is identified as Gnr.Len Ruskin of No.4 Cdo. The Commando seen emerging from the hatchway is wearing a souvenir German cap with the Eagle and Swastika in clear view so he must have got to very close quarters in Dieppe! The man behind holds a Bren LMG across the shoulder whilst Gunner Ruskin holds his Thompson Sub-machine Gun. He may have been wounded as his right hand denim leg is gone and it appears that a First Field Dressing has been applied (FFD - A pre-packed sterile bandage carried by all British Infantry soldiers and which should only be used to treat him. If Morphine has been administered the letter M in blood would be placed on his forehead. Gunner Len Ruskin, a veteran of the Dieppe raid in 1942, was wounded 8 June 1944 during operations at Normandy, France. Post war member of the Commando Association from Harlow, Essex.

The Commandos are Lord Lovat, Capt. Webb ( OC "B" Troop), Capt. Bill Boucher-Myers, unknown, the fair haired Len Ruskin, TSM Chatterway, and Sgt Freddy Ham

The piece of kit on the floor is a collapsible assault boat and the oars are clearly shown. The Commando walking centrally seems to be carrying a Field Radio

4 Commando

 

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Men of the 6th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment, part of the 138th Brigade, British 46th Infantry Division, enter Salerno during the Allied invasion of Italy, 10 September 1943.

 

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A loaded Fairey Barracuda torpedo bomber taxi-ing past an aircraft shed on the way to the runway. Royal Naval Air Station Lee-on-solent, England. September 1943

 

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Boulton Paul Defiant Mk Is of No. 264 Squadron RAF based at Kirton-in-Lindsey, Lincolnshire, August 1940.

 

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A general view of the convoy under air attack showing the intense anti-aircraft barrage put up by the escorts. The battleship HMS Rodney is on the left and the cruiser HMS Manchester on the right. Operation Pedestal, 11 August 1942.

 

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German personnel examine a Cruiser Mark II tank abandoned in Greece in 1941

 

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A Jewish Brigade soldier in Italy, 1945.

 

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October 1940 A symbolic photograph of a British soldier standing guard on a beach in southern England. Colourised by Doug

6 Oct 1940

 

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Churchill AVRE and Sherman Crab casualties of the landing at Westkapelle in November 1944

Operation Infatuate was the code name given to an Anglo-Canadian operation in November 1944 during the Second World War to open the port of Antwerp to shipping and relieve logistical constraints. The operation was part of the wider Battle of the Scheldt and involved two assault landings from the sea by the 4th Special Service Brigade and the 52nd (Lowland) Division. At the same time the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division would force a crossing of the Walcheren Causeway.

 

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Sherman III "READY AND WILLING" of B Squadron 46th (Liverpool Welsh) RTR knocked out near a Universal Carrier on the road to Aprilia North of Anzio in February 1944

 

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A trio of knocked out Matilda IIs in North Africa in 1941

 

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Lance-Corporal W.J. Curtis of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps (R.C.A.M.C.) 3rd Division, bandages the burnt leg of a french boy whose brother looks on, Boissons, Normandy in France, 19 June 1944.

 

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Commanding Officer, Desmond J. Scott in the cockpit of a Spitfire with his wire haired fox terrier 'Kim', RAF Hawkinge, Kent, 1943.

 

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Australian Lieutenant Edward "Ted" Frederick Byrne, NX58832, from the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment at Bumbum in Ramu Valley, New Guinea, 20th of October, 1943.

 

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A paratrooper from 5th (Scots) Parachute Battalion, 2nd Parachute Brigade, takes cover on a street corner in Athens during operations against members of ELAS, 18 December 1944