Photos WW2 US Forces

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• Nov 28, 2020

• #321

As dugouts go, this one looks like some care was taken in its construction.
It was probably previously occupied by the Germans as a part of their defence line but hastily abandoned in the face of the northward advance of the US 5th Army / 36th ID, to which these men belonged.
In the wake of their retreat the Germans laid thousands of mines and booby-traps which caused many deaths and serious injuries among Allied troops.
Thus, anyone wanting to avail themselves of the cover provided by this dugout before it was checked out did so at potentially great risk to themselves.
Note the variety of weaponry carried by these men. L to R: M1 carbine....M1 Thompson SMG...M1 rifle.
(LIFE / Mydans)

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 29, 2020

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Guest

• Nov 28, 2020

• #322

In the kind of scene that would be replicated in S.E. Asia a thousand times over some 25 years later, infantrymen of the US 33rd Division slog through the dense and humid Filipino undergrowth on the advance to Baguio, Luzon, April 1945.
(LIFE / Mydans)

 

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Guest

• Nov 28, 2020

• #323

Aerial picture of a former German position near Anzio that was overrun and captured by British troops - April 1944
Note pillboxes connected by trenches
LIFE Magazine Archives - George Silk Photographer

 

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Guest

• Nov 28, 2020

• #324

US personnel decorating a huge mirror in a club for Thanksgiving day, somewhere in the United Kingdom - November 1943
LIFE Magazine Archives - Hans Wild Photographer

 

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Guest

• Nov 28, 2020

• #325

On the deck of USS Sargent Bay a Casablanca-class escort carrier, on 2 June 1945.
She is seen here shortly after returning from Guam for repairs.. She rejoined operations off Okinawa providing invaluable air cover.
TBM Avengers and FM Wildcats are in the background, while two F4U FG-ID Corsairs, of Marine Fighting Squadron 512 with wings unfolded are being readied.
Photo Source Pinterest.

 

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Guest

• Nov 28, 2020

• #326

"The American flag being raised over Betio, Tarawa Atoll, 24 Nov 1943" (United States Marine Corps)

 

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Guest

• Nov 28, 2020

• #327

A ubiquitous Caterpillar D7 dozer with a le Tourneau angle-blade clears a path through the undergrowth on the advance to Baguio, Philippines, circa 1945.
Wherever the US military went, its Engineers ( or SeaBees) with their dozers went too.
As indispensible as Sherman tanks in their way!
(LIFE / Mydans)

 

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Guest

• Nov 28, 2020

• #328

This M7 105mm Howitzer Motor Carriage...aka "Priest"... was photographed during the fighting for the city of Baguio, on the island of Luzon, Philippines, circa 1945.
US forces supported by Filipino fighters re-took the city from its Japanese occupiers in April 1945.
This image clearly illustrates the large crew needed to man this open-topped vehicle.
(LIFE / Mydans)

 

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Guest

• Nov 28, 2020

• #329

Carl Mydans, with his RolleiFlex camera.

 

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Guest

• Nov 29, 2020

• #330

During WW2, Camp Claiborne in Louisiana was home to the Claiborne-Polk Military Railroad.
This was established to train Army engineers in the skills and techniques need to build and maintain railroads and the rolling stock which used them.
Ultimately the railroad they constructed was some 50 miles long with 45 bridges long the way.
Work was begun in September 1941 and completed in July 1942.
Here we see Army engineers aboard some railroad trolleys crossing one of the stout timber bridges which they contructed.
(LIFE / Wm. Shrout)

US

 

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Guest

• Nov 29, 2020

• #331

The 100-ton vehicle was initially designated a heavy tank. It was re-designated as the 105 mm Gun Motor Carriage T95 in 1945, and then renamed in 1946 as the Super Heavy Tank T28.
Only two prototypes were built before the project was terminated
What particularly worried American planners was the Siegfried Line, the long chain of pillboxes and bunkers that guarded Germany’s western border. A 1943 Ordnance Department study concluded that a heavily armed and armored vehicle would be needed to breach those defenses.
“The original concept proposed mounting the new 105mm gun T5EI in a tank with the equivalent of 8-inch frontal armor using the electric drive system developed for the heavy tank T1E1 and the medium tank T23,” according to tank historian R. P. Hunnicutt in his book Firepower: A History of the American Heavy Tank. “The high velocity T5E1 gun had excellent penetration performance against concrete and when installed in a heavily armored chassis was expected to be extremely effective in reducing heavy fortifications.”
The Army finally settled on a ninety-five-ton design with twelve inches of frontal armor. Compare that to the Sherman, which weighed about thirty tons and was protected by around two inches of frontal armor. Even the feared King Tiger, which the Germans used in combat, only had about six inches of frontal armor.
The T28 was almost thirty-seven feet long from the rear to the tip of the gun, and about ten feet high. It carried a crew of four and the 105-millimeter gun. But for close-range defense against infantry, the T28 only had a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on the roof, which required the vehicle commander to expose himself to fire it.

 

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Guest

• Nov 29, 2020

• #332

The Tiger Den, buildings occupied by the American Flying Tigers airmen, and afterwards by the XIV US Army Air Force in Kunming, Chinese province of Yunnan.
The year is 1944.

 

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Guest

• Nov 29, 2020

• #333

Sailors on USS Balao SS-285 show off their “Battle Flag” and a life ring from a Japanese ship in Guam on April 8, 1945 after her eighth war patrol
LIFE Magazine Archives - Carl Mydans Photographer

 

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• Nov 29, 2020

• #334

An M18 "Hellcat" GMC with an M10 ammunition trailer in tow, Luzon, Philippines, circa 1945.
The AP rounds from the M18's powerful 76mm gun would probably pass right through the armour of any Japanese tank it was likely to encounter...in one side and out the other!
(LIFE / Mydans

 

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Guest

• Nov 29, 2020

• #335

USS Texas underway March 1943.
Throughout 1943, Texas carried out the familiar role of convoy escort. With New York as her home port, she made numerous transatlantic voyages to such places as Casablanca and Gibraltar, as well as frequent visits to ports in the British Isles. That routine continued into 1944 but ended on 22 April of that year when, at the European end of one such mission, she remained at the Clyde estuary in Scotland and began training for the invasion of Normandy.

 

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Guest

• Dec 1, 2020

• #336

U.S. Marine during grenade training near San Diego, possibly at Camp Pendleton - 1943
LIFE Magazine Archives - John Florea Photographer

 

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Guest

• Dec 1, 2020

• #337

Operation Watchtower
7 August 1942 – 9 February 1943

 

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Guest

• Dec 1, 2020

• #338

Ensign Darrell C. Bennett, A-V(N), USNR stands beside his plane, a General Motors FM-2 Wildcat fighter, on board USS Gambier Bay (CVE-73), 1 August 1944. Note pinup art and nickname Smokey's Lucky Witch adorning the engine cowling; what appears to be a Composite Squadron Ten (VC-10) insignia below the cockpit windshield; plane numbers (27) in white on the wing leading edge and and in black under the lip of the cowling; and Ensign's Bennett's flight gear and .45 caliber M1911A1 pistol carried in a shoulder holster. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, 80-G-243864

 

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Guest

• Dec 4, 2020

• #339

An M3 75mm Gun Motor Carriage on the beach at Bougainville, November 1943.
Although largely obsolete in the ETO due to rapid advances in armour technology, it was more than capable of dealing with any Japanese armour it might have encountered in the PTO.
Also, its 75mm HE round was a very useful bunker-buster!
(LIFE / Wm. Shrout)

 

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Guest

• Dec 4, 2020

• #340

USS Moale DD-693 with other USN destroyers off of Guam in 1945
USS Moale was the second Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer, she was commissioned in 1944, and earned Five Battle Stars for her WW2 service, including participating in the Battle of Ormoc Bay where Moale had three fatalities and 25 injured
Moale served in the Cold War US Navy including the blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Moale was decomissioned in 1973, and sold for scrap
This picture was the cover for the July 2, 1945 issue of LIFE Magazine, but for reasons unknown they reversed it and edited out the hull numbers
LIFE Magazine Archives - Eliot Elisofon Photographer