Photos Colour and Colourised Photos of WW2 & earlier conflicts

[santana]

The German Submarine U-505 (Type IXC)
Captured at sea off the coast of Río de Oro, Western Sahara, West Africa on the 4th of June 1944 by a US carrier task group — one that had sunk two of U-505's sister boats from Lorient only a few weeks earlier.

The carrier in question was the escort carrier USS Guadalcanal, which, in conjunction with four destroyers, formed hunter-killer Task Group 22.3. The group was commanded by Captain Daniel V. Gallery, one of the most talented and determined American sub hunting skippers of the war.

On that day, shortly after 11 a.m., U-505's faulty sound detection equipment picked up faint propeller noises. When their captain Oblt.z.S. Lange rose to periscope depth to investigate, the sight he saw made his blood run cold. U-505 was in the midst of a carrier task group and about to be attacked by three destroyers and several aircraft. The boat immediately dived, but freakish water conditions allowed the aircraft to see the sub and use bursts from its .50-caliber machine guns to mark her submerged position for the destroyers.

'They really gave it to us!' crewman Hans Goebeler remembers. 'They fired hedgehogs and about 64 depth charges at us. The explosions were the biggest I ever heard. One depth charge was so close it damaged torpedoes stored in the upper deck. Other depth charges jammed our main rudder and diving planes. Lange managed to fire one torpedo, but soon there was nothing for us to do but surface and abandon ship before she sank for good.

Believing U-505 to be seriously damaged, Lange ordered his crew to abandon ship. This order was obeyed so promptly that scuttling was not completed.

A boarding party from the escort destroyer USS Pillsbury safely secured U-505, it attempted to take her in tow, but collided repeatedly with her and had to move away with three compartments flooded. Instead, a second boarding party from Guadalcanal rigged a towline from the aircraft carrier to the U-boat.

After three days of towing, Guadalcanal transferred U-505 to the fleet tug Abnaki (ATF-96). On Monday the 19th of June, U-505 entered Port Royal Bay, Bermuda, after a tow of 1,700 nautical miles (3,150 km; 1,960 mi).
This action was the first time the U.S. Navy had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the War of 1812. 58 prisoners were taken from U-505, three of them wounded (including Lange); only one of the crew was killed in the action.

The cipher materials captured on U-505 included the special "coordinate" code, the regular and officer Enigma settings for June 1944, the current short weather codebook, the short signal codebook, and bigram tables due to come into effect in July and August respectively.
The material from U-505 arrived at the decryption establishment at Bletchley Park on the 20th of June 1944. While the Allies were able to break most Enigma settings by intense cryptanalysis (including heavy use of the electromechanical "bombes"), having the Enigma settings for the U-boats saved a lot of work and time, which could be applied to other keys. The settings break was only valid until the end of June and therefore had an extremely limited outcome on the eventual cracking of the Enigma code, but having the weather and short signal codebooks and bigram tables made the work easier.

For his part in saving the abandoned submarine, Lieutenant (jg) David was awarded the Medal of Honor; Torpedoman's Mate Third Class A. Knispel and Radioman Second Class S. E. Wdowiak, each received the Navy Cross; and Commander Trosino received the Legion of Merit.

Post war information;
Used for secret trials and training in Bermuda until May 45.
Gifted to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry on the 9th of March 1954, where it has remained on public display.

 

[Conhoon]

USS Allen M. Sumner (DD-692)(was the lead ship of her class of destroyers) during a storm in the South China Sea. Photo taken from the Taluga tanker (USS Taluga (AO-62), January 1945

 

[Conhoon]

In the aftermath of several Japanese armored counterattacks across Peleliu airfield, two US Marines from the 1st Marine Division peer into a destroyed Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go light tank belonging to the Japanese 14th Infantry Division's tank company. September 15 or 16, 1944.

By US standards the Type 95 was not considered a tank but a tankette. The Marine tank commander on Peleliu described them as merely "light reconnaissance vehicles" possessing "only ¼ ich to 3/8 ich armor," and stated that these "tankettes were not worthy of the name tank and were doomed to certain destruction in any heavy action." (1) An assessment that proved to be accurate.

On D-Day, around 16:50hrs a Japanese rifle company and about 15 Japanese tanks counter-attacked across the airfield against positions held by the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.

Half of the tanks had infantry ridding on their backs. These tanks were fitted with bamboo handrails on the engine deck for the unfortunate riflemen to cling to. (2) What’s left of one of these handrails can be seen in this photo.

The attack sheer momentum carried a few of the Japanese tanks through the Marine line and into the rear but these were quickly knocked out. All but two of the Japanese tanks were destroyed as eight M4A2 Sherman tanks of Companies A and B, 1st Tank Battalion joined the fray. (2)

When the smoke of battle cleared, no enemy riflemen were in sight. They had either been destroyed by the overwhelming firepower brought to bear upon them or preferred to retreat in the face of it. Two Marines were found crushed to death by enemy tanks and a few other men had been wounded by flying fragments of exploding tanks. One Sherman had even suffered three hits by bazookas, indicative of the confusion caused by the counterattack. The commanding officer of the 1st Tank Battalion, however, thought that the swift collapse of the tank-infantry counterattack was "no grounds for smugness in regard to our antitank prowess. Had the Japanese possessed modern tanks instead of tankettes and had they attacked in greater numbers the situation would have been critical."(1)

Original: USMC (95921)

Sources:

(1) G. W. Garand & T. R. Strobridge (1971), “History of USMC Operations in WWII, Vol. IV: Western Pacific Operations”, USMC Historical Branch

(2) Moran et al. (2002), “The Forgotten Corner of Hell, Peleliu 1944”, Osprey Campaign Series 110

 

[Conhoon]

16 December 1942. Gona. The three Chapman brothers from Moonta in South Australia, who all joined the 2/27th Infantry Battalion. The siblings are pictured pausing during a break in fighting against the Japanese just after the fall of Gona in Papua New Guinea.

The lads, the sons of Maurice and Mabel Chapman, all survived the war but an elder brother, Lance Chapman, 25 was killed in Egypt six weeks before this photo was taken.

Left to right: SX12357 Private Maxwell Maurice Chapman; SX12689 Private Desmond Chapman; and SX10196 Private Raymond Chapman. They were lucky and all survived the war.

The Sole Survivor Policy
It occured regularly that siblings joined the army together. The Sole Survivor Policy describes a set of regulations in the U.S. Military that are designed to protect members of a family from the draft or from combat duty if they have already lost family members in military service.
The issue that gave rise to the regulations first caught public attention after the five Sullivan brothers were all killed when the USS Juneau (CL-52) was sunk during World War II.
In World War II, the Borgstrom brothers, Elmer, Clyde, and twins Rolon and Rulon, were killed within a few months of each other in 1944. Their parents then successfully petitioned for their son Boyd, who was also on active duty, to be released from service. Their sixth son, Elton, who had not yet reached conscription age, was exempted from military service.
The three Butehorn brothers of Bethpage, New York, Charles, Joseph, and Henry, were all deployed during World War II. After Charles was killed in action in France in 1944 and Joseph was killed in action in the Pacific in 1945, Henry, who was serving with the Army Air Forces in Italy, was ordered home by the War Department. The "Veterans of Foreign Wars" post in Bethpage is named after their sacrifice.
In the case of the Niland brothers, U.S. intelligence believed that all but one of four siblings were killed in action. The eldest brother, Technical Sergeant Edward Niland, of the U.S. Army Air Forces, was later found to have been held in a prisoner of war camp in Burma. The Academy Award-winning film Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg, was loosely based on the Niland brothers' story.
Both the Borgstrom and Butehorn incidents occurred before the Sole Survivor Policy was put into effect in 1948. They, along with the deaths of all of the Sullivan brothers in 1942, helped lead to it.
Colour by Jake
Source: Australian War Memorial

 

[Chazman]

The German Submarine U-505 (Type IXC)
Captured at sea off the coast of Río de Oro, Western Sahara, West Africa on the 4th of June 1944 by a US carrier task group — one that had sunk two of U-505's sister boats from Lorient only a few weeks earlier.

The carrier in question was the escort carrier USS Guadalcanal, which, in conjunction with four destroyers, formed hunter-killer Task Group 22.3. The group was commanded by Captain Daniel V. Gallery, one of the most talented and determined American sub hunting skippers of the war.

On that day, shortly after 11 a.m., U-505's faulty sound detection equipment picked up faint propeller noises. When their captain Oblt.z.S. Lange rose to periscope depth to investigate, the sight he saw made his blood run cold. U-505 was in the midst of a carrier task group and about to be attacked by three destroyers and several aircraft. The boat immediately dived, but freakish water conditions allowed the aircraft to see the sub and use bursts from its .50-caliber machine guns to mark her submerged position for the destroyers.

'They really gave it to us!' crewman Hans Goebeler remembers. 'They fired hedgehogs and about 64 depth charges at us. The explosions were the biggest I ever heard. One depth charge was so close it damaged torpedoes stored in the upper deck. Other depth charges jammed our main rudder and diving planes. Lange managed to fire one torpedo, but soon there was nothing for us to do but surface and abandon ship before she sank for good.

Believing U-505 to be seriously damaged, Lange ordered his crew to abandon ship. This order was obeyed so promptly that scuttling was not completed.

A boarding party from the escort destroyer USS Pillsbury safely secured U-505, it attempted to take her in tow, but collided repeatedly with her and had to move away with three compartments flooded. Instead, a second boarding party from Guadalcanal rigged a towline from the aircraft carrier to the U-boat.

After three days of towing, Guadalcanal transferred U-505 to the fleet tug Abnaki (ATF-96). On Monday the 19th of June, U-505 entered Port Royal Bay, Bermuda, after a tow of 1,700 nautical miles (3,150 km; 1,960 mi).
This action was the first time the U.S. Navy had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the War of 1812. 58 prisoners were taken from U-505, three of them wounded (including Lange); only one of the crew was killed in the action.

The cipher materials captured on U-505 included the special "coordinate" code, the regular and officer Enigma settings for June 1944, the current short weather codebook, the short signal codebook, and bigram tables due to come into effect in July and August respectively.
The material from U-505 arrived at the decryption establishment at Bletchley Park on the 20th of June 1944. While the Allies were able to break most Enigma settings by intense cryptanalysis (including heavy use of the electromechanical "bombes"), having the Enigma settings for the U-boats saved a lot of work and time, which could be applied to other keys. The settings break was only valid until the end of June and therefore had an extremely limited outcome on the eventual cracking of the Enigma code, but having the weather and short signal codebooks and bigram tables made the work easier.

For his part in saving the abandoned submarine, Lieutenant (jg) David was awarded the Medal of Honor; Torpedoman's Mate Third Class A. Knispel and Radioman Second Class S. E. Wdowiak, each received the Navy Cross; and Commander Trosino received the Legion of Merit.

Post war information;
Used for secret trials and training in Bermuda until May 45.
Gifted to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry on the 9th of March 1954, where it has remained on public display.

I've been on the U-505, twice.

 

[santana]

I've been on the U-505, twice.

Me too, amazing museum!!!

 

[BravoZulu]

Four star general and future president Ulysses S. Grant in the battle of Cold Harbor, June 1864.

 

[BravoZulu]

Members of the "French Squadron SAS" (1ere Compagnie de Chasseurs Parchutistes) during the link-up between advanced units of the 1st and 8th armies in the Gabes-Tozeur area , Tunisia. This Patrol meet a tunisian,who served in the French Army for 10 years , and his son . Photo taken by Sgt. Currey. 16th Jan. to 6th Feb. 1943.
Image provivied by the IWM (© IWM NA 674)

 

[BravoZulu]

German infantrymen wearing gas masks and Gaede model 1915 helmets

 

[BravoZulu]

SdKfz 10/5 anti-aircraft halftrack it's crew in tropical gear, Italy, July 1943
The photograph is part of a series of original colour photographs taken by Horst Grund, a photographer for the Kriegsmarine who visited several different fronts during WWII.

 

[Chazman]

Warsaw uprising.

 

[BravoZulu]

Indian infantry soldiers don their gas masks while taking position in a trench during WWI

 

[NebrHogger]

German soldiers in the 4th pic above all appear to have Hebel flare pistols.

 

[BravoZulu]

Purported to be Japanese troops leaving for the Manchurian front, 1933. The uniforms style puts the image in the early 30's for sure

 

[BravoZulu]

Seen from the flight deck of HMS Victorious, a Fairey Albacore takes off from HMS Indomitable, while HMS Eagle brings up the rear.

 

[BravoZulu]

 

[BravoZulu]

USS California (BB-44) seen here in her final configuration

 

[BravoZulu]

USS Mississippi (BB-41) - Puget Sound Navy Yard/Dry Dock Number 4 - 22 October 1940 - Source: US National Archive

 

[Chazman]

US troops in bocage country, France, 1944.

 

[BravoZulu]

A confederate veteran and a union veteran shaking hands on the 50th anniversary of Gettysburg, July 1913