Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

US soldiers advance upon a German-occupied town in France where they receive some sniper fire along the way during the Meuse–Argonne offensive (October 1918)

Soviet SSh-40 helmet with a German 5-cm mortar shell found by a farmer ploughing his field in Russia.

BravoZulu said:

Don't ever say that to a Canadian??

Click to expand...

Yes, snap frozen yank will usually suffice

Mother and Child 4 months After Atomic Bomb, Hiroshima 1946. photo taken in 1946 by Alfred Eisenstaedt in b/w.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Pix Inc./The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

A lorry load of Australian Artillery reinforcements proceeding along the road to join the 5th Australian Divisional Artillery, engaged in the battle for the Hindenburg Line Defenses, 1 October 1918.
Colour: @Colourisedpieceofjake
https://www.facebook.com/HistoryisallaboutColour/
Caption: awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/1918/battles/hindenburg
Image courtesy Australian War Memorial.

A German sailor of a ‘Seewehr-Abteilung’, exact date and location unknown, war period.

The ‘Seewehr’ was the Imperial German Navy’s equivalent to the Army’s Landsturm/Landwehr (militia). It was composed of older or less fit personnel, equipped with outdated or captured material.
In this case, this sailor carries a captured Russian M1891 3-line Mosin Nagant rifle fitted with custom-made muzzle adaptors. These adaptors allowed German bayonets to be attached to the rifle.

In October/November 1914, the I. and II. Seewehr-Abteilungen were expanded to form 5 'Matrosen-Regimenter' (loosely translates as Seamans' Regiments). These third rate Naval units were entrusted with naval facilities’ security and manning the defenses along the exposed Atlantic coast, including occupied Flanders.

Original: S. Wouters collection. (Colour and text by Rui Candeias)

A German 69th Infantry Battalion veteran of the Franco-Prussian War and World War I at a Veterans Rally parade in 1936

County class B Heavy cruiser HMS York in the 1930s. She was later crippled by Italian explosive motor boats in Souda Bay, Crete


USS Missouri (BB-63) fires her forward guns, August 1944. At the right edge of the photo, 16" projectiles fired by the battleship are visible.

3.7 cm Maschinenkanone Flak, Laniscourt (Laon) France, 1917.
Sent 1917 by a soldier of a Landwehr Foot Artillery Batallion. The picture is marked: "Flakgeschütz beim Fort Laniscourt".

Anti-Aircraft 3.7cm MaschinenFlak gun on moveable base: Design year : 1914, Calibre : 37.00 mm, Initial muzzle speed : 367 m/s, Fire rate : 300 rounds / minute (varying according to different sources), Range : 4110 m (in non AA use)
Colour by Jake

WWI era studio portrait of a British soldier displaying several examples of trench-fighting equipment.
Includes a Steel cap for wearing under an ordinance cap, French splinter goggles and a steel dagger gauntlet. The body armour seems to be composed of metal plates inside cloth pouches.

Original: IWM (Q30161) Colour by: In Colore Veritas

Two British Navy frogmen train in paddling one of the kayaks used in approaching their objectives. They were the underwater experts who blasted a hole in the Nazi's Atlantic Wall to enable invasion craft to reach the Normandy beaches on D-Day.
The first men ashore on "D" day were frogmen; this time they were called Landing Craft Obstruction Clearance Units [LCOCUs pronounced Lock-yews]. There were a hundred and twenty of them and their object was to clear away the underwater obstructions and mines so that the assault craft could get on to the beach.
The frogmen who blasted a hole in the Nazis' Atlantic Wall, and enabled invasion craft to reach the Normandy beaches on "D" day were nearly all "hostilities only" men.

Source: Imperial War Museums, # A 30325. Colour impression by Jake.

German cemetery, near El Ouina airfield, Tunisia, May 1943. Original colour photo by Robert Capa.

81 years ago, on September 28, 1939 at 1:15 pm, Maj. Gen. Tadeusz Kutrzeba signed the act of capitulation of Warsaw.




The city was attacked from the air from September 1, and directly overland from September 8.

September 1918. 'Shell Shock' patients having a happy time fishing and swimming under the walls of Château Chambord in the Loire region in France. These American soldiers are recovering from War Neurosis/Shell Shock, as the scientists now call the condition ‘PTSD'
Colour by Jake

A captured Italian, Obice da 305/17 modello 16 howitzer on a siege carriage with Bonagente wheel belts is inspected by a pair of Austro-Hungarian soldiers in a village near Udine, Italy. November, 1917.
(National Archive/Official German Photograph of WWI) (Colourised by Joshua Barrett)

On May 2, 1942, the submarine U-573 entered Spanish waters, mooring in the port of Cartagena. Although international law only allowed a belligerent vessel to stay for less than 24 hours because in such a case it would be interned by the authorities, the Government of Madrid authorized the submersible to stay for almost three months to carry out the necessary repairs, without paying attention to the complaints from Great Britain that it demanded that it set sail before 10:00 am on 3 May. In fact, the treatment provided by the Spanish Navy was very correct because the 44 crew members were housed in the Cartagena Submarine School and access to the facilities of technicians from Germany was allowed.

The Spanish Navy was interested in U-573 because of the four submarines available by Spain, none had the excellent characteristics of the German ship. This is how the Naval General Staff convinced the “Generalissimo” Francisco Franco of the need to acquire the submersible, proposing to issue a purchase offer to Germany. Surprisingly and against all expectations, the Third Reich agreed to carry out the sale in exchange for 1.5 million marks, so immediately afterwards, the 44 crew members were repatriated to Germany, including Captain Heinrich Heinsohn who died shortly after. at the controls of the submarine U-438.

Although it may not seem like it, there is a boat The Swedish royal cruiser Göta Lejon, "The Gothic Lion" completely camouflaged during the war.
The HSwMS Göta Lejon was a Swedish cruiser. Together with her sister ship Tre Kronor, they were the largest ships to ever serve in the Royal Swedish Navy.

It is said that, while the fate of the Soviet Union hang in the balance, Stalin sent a telegram to the Il-2 manufacturing plant stating that “The Red Army needs the Il-2 as it needs air and bread. I urge you to produce more Ilyushins.”


And they did: The Ilyushin Il-2 ‘Shturmovik’, nicknamed by the Germans the ‘Schwarze Tod’ (Black Death) was produced in higher numbers than any other combat aircraft during WW2 with a total of 36,163 aircraft built.
It started its career as a single-seat bomber instead of the pure two-seat assault aircraft Ilyushin had initially designed with 249 Il-2 being available at the start of Operation Barbarossa. In early 1942, after bitter complains from Il-2 pilots, a special conference was held at the Kremlin from which a two-seat version of the Il-2 was born. The new aircraft, known to the West as the Il-2M, now had a rear gunner manning a Berezin UBT 12.7mm MG. The new aircraft received its baptism of fire on 30 October 1942. Despite the obvious improvements in aircraft survivability, the Il-2 rear gunner position was not as well armoured as the pilot’s, and rear gunners suffered accordingly. After a series of initial successes against enemy fighters, once the surprise effect was gone the Il-2 rear gunner’s casualty rate soar to such high numbers that by wars-end it was estimated that seven Il-2 rear gunners had lost their lives for each pilot KIA. A number of Assault Aviation Regiments had female rear gunners, such as the 804th ShAP which served on the Kalinin front in May of 1943.
Despite its increased weight due to the heavy armoured shell protecting the pilot, the Il-2 had outstanding maneuverability and in the hands of an experienced pilot it was far from being a sitting duck for fighters.
But most Soviet pilots were not experienced. Mostly due to poor pilot training and lack of proper, if any, fighter escort during the critical initial stages of the German invasion, Il-2 units suffered such heavy losses that any pilot lucky enough to complete 10 combat missions was awarded the ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ medal. Only a few were awarded. Later in the war, when tactical air superiority was achieved, an Il-2 pilot had to fly 100 missions to get the HSU.
In this photo, which is most probably a still from a 16mm film, five Il-2 Type 3 from, I believe, 6th GShaP (Guard Assault Aviation Regiment)* fly over the Baltic Front, summer 1944. The type 3 was the variant produced in greater numbers having first entered combat in early 1943 at Stalingrad.
*The unusual red star with a black/red pattern points to this particular unit. Although this kind of unofficial unit markings was not usually tolerated, the former 215th ShAP probably had a special status as it was the first unit to be awarded the title of Guard unit (and promptly renamed 6th GShAP) on 6 December 1941 for outstanding valor displayed during the defense of Moscow.
Original (probably): Tsentralniy Dom Aviatsia i Kosmonavtika, Moscow

1917/1918 Two german trench raiding stormtroopers wearing body armor and equipped with automatic weapons.


Captured German prisoner wearing latest body protector. September, 1917

Note with photo: Soldier is wearing the latest type of articulated body armour, often worn by machine gunners, usually paired with a thickened plate on the front of the helmet

(Photo source - from Library and Archives Canada) (Colourised by Mark at Canadian Colour)

They had to fight for several days, they fought for over 2 months ...


76 years ago the Warsaw Uprising ended.
Death suffered from 130,000 up to 200 thousand residents of the capital.
The Warsaw Uprising was the largest underground military operation in German-occupied Europe. Its military goal was to liberate the capital from the extremely brutal German occupation, under which it was located since September 1939.