Photos WW2 US Forces

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Soldiers looking inside a captured Japanese submarine brought to Camp Atterbury, Indiana. 3 August 1943

 

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M3 Stuart on parade in Wellington, New Zealand circa 1943

 

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USMC Douglas SBD Dauntless in flight over Guadalcanal 1943

 

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7th Armored Division Shermans in temporary position near St. Vith, Belgium, fire on enemy positions beyond the city. 40th Tank Battalion, 24 January 1945.

 

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Tondelayo, B-17 Flying Fortress

 

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P51-B 43-12375 “BONNIE B” 353rd fighter squadron 354th FG 8th AF. The group moved to England in the autumn of 1943 and was assigned to the Ninth Air Force in December 1943. The group was the first to fly P51 Mustangs operationally and in their bomber escort missions, pushed to find the long-range limits of the aircraft.

 

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One of 4 U. S. soldiers killed and 20 injured from exploding booby-trap attached to gate. US Army Photo 161-15." Sicily, Italy. 1943

 

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Pfc. Harvey White of Minneapolis gives blood plasma to Pvt. Roy W. Humphrey from Toledo, Ohio of the 7th Inf. Regt., US 3rd Division at the aid station, Sant'Agata, Sicily, after he was wounded by shrapnel on the 9th August 1943

(Pvt. Humphrey was wounded near San Fratello and was later taken to the 93rd. Evacuation Hospital) He died 8th Aug 1943

 

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TBF-1 Avenger mishap on the deck of training carrier USS Sable in Lake Michigan, 1945

 

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Ground crew member adjusting machine guns on B-29 Superfortress “Shady Lady” from the 497th Bomb Group, Saipan, Marianas Islands. All 10 crewmen were KIA when she was shot down during a mission to bomb the Musachino Aircraft Engine Factory in Tokyo on January 27, 1945

“Shady Lady" Boeing B-29-40-BW Superfortress s/n 42-24619 870th BS, 497th BG, 20th AF Shot down by fighters on January 27,1945 mission to bomb the Musachino Aircraft Engine Factory in Tokyo. (MACR 11557) Capt. Raymond O. Dauth - pilot (KIA) 2ndLt. John E. Burleson - copilot (KIA) 2ndLt. Ronald H. King - navigator (KIA) 1stLt. Frederick W. Baumann,Jr. - bombardier (KIA) 2ndLt. Robert W. Chapla - flight engineer (KIA) S/Sgt. Quintin N. Preble - CFC operator/gunner (KIA) Sgt. Allan McClay - engineer/gunner (KIA) S/Sgt. Daniel J. Carroll - radio operator/gunner (KIA) Sgt. Walter J. Horowski - electronics specialist/gunner (KIA) Sgt. Theodore D. Northup - radar operator/gunner (KIA) Cpl. James L. Burk - tail gunner (KIA)

 

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Pvt. William E. Walker of Miamisburg, Ohio, drinks from a bottle of sake he found among the ruins of Tarawa on November 20, 1943

 

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Pvt. Jennings of Columbia, Mississippi, poses near a Japanese sniper he shot as US Marines stormed a Japanese stronghold on Tarawa atoll on November 21, 1943.

 

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Sherman of the 746th Tank Battalion supporting Company I, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division along rue Fond Leval at Sprimont in Belgium in September 1944

 

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Lt. Ford of the 36th FS 8th Fighter Group miraculously walks away from the crash landing of his P-38L Lightning; 20 December 1944. He was MIA 27th Dec 1944

 

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Boeing B-29 Superfortresses en route from Guam to Japan, May 1945.

 

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PFC Raymond Bowman (R) and Lehmann Riggs (L) with their 30. Cal machine gun on a balcony in Leipzig, Germany, on April 18, 1945. Just minutes later Bowman was killed by a German sniper on that balcony, just 16 days after his 21st birthday.

The photographs by Robert Capa were published in Life magazine on 14 May 1945, shortly after Germany surrendered, with the caption “The Picture of the Last Man to Die.”

He was a member of a platoon of machine gunners who entered a building in Leipzig and set positions to cover foot soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division who were arriving to the Zeppelin Bridge. Soldiers Bowman and Lehman Riggs of Cookeville, Tennessee took positions in an open balcony with a clear view of the bridge. One fired the gun, while the other soldier fed it. Riggs came inside, leaving Bowman alone firing the gun. When he was reloading the gun, he was shot in the cheek by a sniper's bullet which came from the street below. He crumpled to the floor, already dead.

War photographer Robert Capa climbed through the balcony window to the flat and he took a picture of the dead soldier, who lay in the open door with the Luftwaffe sheepskin helmet he had looted still on his head. He took other pictures showing how the blood spread on the floor, while other soldiers attended to Bowman and to his fellow gunner.

Bowman was actually not the last US serviceman killed in WWII, that unfortunate distinction went to Anthony Marchione. He’d just turned 21 and was killed by renegade Japanese fighter pilots three days after the August 15 ceasefire between the Allies and Japan went into effect.

 

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USAAF personnel assembling Curtiss P-40 Warhawk aircraft at Abadan Air Base, Iran. These were destined for the Soviet Union. April, 1943, Iran

 

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Riflemen of the 29th Marine Regiment ride a M4A3 Sherman 105mm of Company A, 6th Tank Battalion during the 6th Marine Division's drive on Chuda along the west coast of Okinawa. After expecting a contested landing on April 1, 1945, and seeing little of the Japanese, the Americans were in high spirits as objectives are taken ahead of schedule in Northern Okinawa; the Shuri Line would rob them of their high morale. The 29th Marines cut off the Motobu Peninsula and seized Chuda at 1200 Hours on April 6, 1945

 

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US Marine F4U Corsair firing a full load of rockets at Japanese positions on Okinawa

 

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Air strip on Tarawa during World War II