Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

A sergeant of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps bandages the wounded ear of 'Jasper', a mine-detecting dog at Bayeux in Normandy, 5th July 1944.

October-November 1916
18 year old Private James Henry Hepburn (4/4300), of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the garden of amateur photographer Alfred Dupire at 45, Rue d'Amiens, Warloy-Baillon, northern France.


Born 1898 in Aberdeenshire and died 1964
Colourised by Doug

On board the Polish Navy destroyer ORP Garland, 1941.

Heinkel He-162,
Many of Germany’s captured new and experimental aircraft were displayed in an exhibition as part of London’s Thanksgiving week on September 14, 1945. Among the aircraft are a number of jet- and rocket-propelled planes. Pictured here is a side view of the Heinkel He-162 “Volksjäger,” propelled by a turbo-jet unit mounted above the fuselage, in Hyde Park, London


Colour by RJM

F/O Lewis E. Park Jr. (KIA 27/6/44) of 438 Squadron RCAF on his Norton motorcycle in front of Hawker Typhoon Ib R-D (MN518) the personal aircraft of W/C Robert Tremayne Davidson. RAF Funtington or Hurn, April-May 1944

WOW mate, both of those machines above would be priceless to have now.......Thanks for posting!!

I'm trying to make out the kills on the side of the cockpit and I can't really......is that possible there are two Japanese there and what are the others??

Type VIIC U-boat U-278 seen from a B-24 Liberator after capitulation. She survived the war

Grumman F6F-5 Hellcats preparing for launch off of CV-12-USS Hornet, 1944

A quarter view of the Polish Navy destroyer ORP Burza, 1942

American B-17 bombers flying through a flak filled sky over Germany.

18th Fighter Group, 44th FS at Munda airstrip, New Georgia in the Solomon Islands. 14 August 1943

Battle of Moscow in original colour photographs.

A USMC Vought F4U-1 Corsair looses its load of HVAR rocket projectiles on a run against a Japanese stronghold on Okinawa. In the lower background is the smoke of battle as Marine units move inland. June, 1945.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force's brand new fighter.
Lend-lease F4U Corsairs that have recently arrived from America, and still wearing American markings, are being assembled at No.1 Assembly Depot, RNZAF Hobsonville. 1944


Two mechanics appear to be installing the Pratt and Whitney Double Wasp engines 36 spark plugs.
Equipped with obsolete Curtiss P-40s, Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) squadrons in the South Pacific performed impressively, in particular in the air-to-air role, shooting down 100 Japanese aircraft for the loss of only 20 P-40s.
As the war moved north from the US Army’s area of operations to the US Navy’s Pacific Ocean area of operations the NZ squadrons were no longer needed and there was no supply line for P40s.
The New Zealand government, keen to play a political role in the post war pacific, negotiated to keep the RNZAF squadrons active requiring them to be placed under the US Navy Command and refitted with US Navy fighters with the mighty Corsair being chosen.
Some 424 Corsairs equipped 13 RNZAF squadrons.

August 1942 – Newhaven – Great Britain
After the Dieppe fiasco, British commandos return to Newhaven in southern England, not far from Brighton. These Scottish snipers, the Lovat Scouts, have been quite successful in the chaotic and totally disordered attack on the French coast.


Led by Commander Simon Fraser, the fifteenth Lord Lovat, they managed to knock out a battery of six German guns.
The Allied attack on Dieppe, one hundred kilometers north of Le Havre and directly opposite the south of England, was launched by Admiral Louis Mountbatten, the British commander of Combined Operations Headquarters. It is an overconfident attempt to blow a hole in the German coastal defenses and to gain experience for later, larger landing operations.
On August 19, 1942, more than six thousand men, mostly Canadians, set course for Dieppe. Things are already going wrong in the Channel, where the attack fleet is spotted by a German coastal convoy. The storming of the Normandy beach therefore comes as no surprise to the Germans, who welcome the invasion force with a murderous barrage.
More than four thousand allied infantrymen are killed, wounded or captured. The material losses are also enormous. The tanks rolling out of the landing craft immediately run aground on the beach, which turns out to be strewn with large boulders.
The British and Canadian air forces also lose another hundred aircraft.
After several dramatic hours on the battlefield at Dieppe, the signal for a general retreat is given and the almost destroyed invasion army seeks refuge at sea. The downfall in the Channel teaches the Allies that a successful landing on an occupied coast requires much more air support and considerably better communications.
The only ones to return to British soil with their heads held high are Lord Lovat and his scouts. The military failure even earns Commander Fraser, head of a Scottish clan, an award.
In 1944, however, circumstances were much different, and the German troops in Dieppe wisely withdrew from the town during the evening of 31 August.
On 1 September 1944, Major Dennis Bult-Francis led his 8th Reconnaissance Regiment into Dieppe. The rest of the 2nd Canadian Division followed. Several officers and men in the 2nd Canadian Division had taken part in the 1942 raid. Many of their friends had perished on the beaches of Dieppe or had been taken prisoner.
Colourised PIECE of JAKE

Brigadeführer Jürgen Wagner negotiating the surrender of his command with Lt. Col Leroy E. Frazier, commander of the 405th Infantry Regiment. Photography taken at the River Elbe near Tangermünde, Germany, May 1945.


This photo was taken by LIFE photographer William Vandivert
Colourised by Benoit

German soldiers are removing lice from their uniforms, c. 1916-18

A German cavalryman on the eastern front, winter of 1914-15

Siege of Budapest, 1945

27 October 1914
Roll call of the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards on the Ypres-Menin Road. 12 officers and 460 men answered. Losses 17 Officers and 379 NCOs and men


(Photo source - © IWM Q 57241)
Colourised by Doug