Old military photographs of the Second World War. Horrible photographs from the Second World War (16 photos)
A fresh selection of photographs with descriptions.
1. A British soldier grins at German prisoners captured at El Alamein.
The famous gesture shown by the fighter has a double meaning: in the UK, if the hand is turned with the back of the hand, it also means the female genital organ.
2. The flight deck of the aircraft carrier Ryuho, damaged by hits from American 227-kg aerial bombs as a result of the raid on March 19, 1945.
3. The first ever jet bomber Arado Ar-234 "Blitz" ("Lightning")
4. A group of German Ju-52 transport aircraft perishes under American machine gun fire in the Strait of Sicily
The Junkers, flying at low altitude, were unlucky to run into a group of B-25s and the P-38s escorting them. The Junkers, not covered by anyone, suffered heavy losses: the Americans shot down 25 out of 35 aircraft. In general, this was one of the main reasons for the defeat of the Germans in Africa - the inability to provide reliable supplies, partly due to huge losses V transport aviation(which inevitably had the most detrimental effect on almost all subsequent Wehrmacht operations), partly due to the threat to shipping.
5. III./Jg54 pilot, non-commissioned officer Gerhard Reimann with his damaged Bf-109F-4
6. Red Army soldiers disembark from boats
7. Captured garrison of Koenigsberg. 3rd Belorussian Front
8. Japanese transport ships under attack by American bombers in Simpson Harbor
The photo, taken from a B-25D Mitchell from the 3rd Bomb Group, showed a direct hit.
9. The Germans are testing an unusual defensive weapon - an aircraft flamethrower
In practice, the weapon turned out to be quite stupid, and its use was abandoned.
10. Quite a rare photograph depicting the results of the use of Soviet anti-tank cumulative aerial bombs PTAB 2.5 kg caliber
And the rarity is this: despite the obvious effectiveness of this type of ammunition and its active introduction into attack air units, mass use on the battlefield and rave reviews from pilots, very few photographs of damage from the PTAB-2.5 were taken, specifically close-up- practically none. Moreover, for some reason, even the accounting of equipment destroyed specifically by PTABs was not carried out - all of it was counted as destroyed by aerial bombs without taking into account the type of ammunition. Therefore, now the effectiveness of this interesting aerial bomb can only be assessed indirectly - from the pilots’ memoirs and secondary documents.
11. Damage to the tail of the German He-111N night bomber from an anti-aircraft shell.
12. German 88-mm FlaK 36/37 gun captured by the Americans on the streets of Cologne
13. Famous German aircraft designers, Ernst Heinkel and Claude Dornier, at Hitler's residence "Berghof"
14. A German paratrooper prepares to jump from a Ju-52
Probably a staged photo. France, 1944. The pose is a pleasure, although it undoubtedly has good reasons: due to the design of the German parachute, you had to jump head down, with your legs spread apart.
15. 51st Army on the approaches to Rostov. February 1943
The author of the photo is Leonid Isaakovich Yablonsky.
16. A series of photographs taken by the Americans during the assault on Cologne
The famous "Panther" near the station building behind the Cologne Cathedral, destroyed by the American M26 Pershing tank on March 6, 1945.
17. The pilot of the damaged “superfortress” lost control while making an emergency landing at a base on Iwo Jima and rammed a fighter parking lot, damaging 9 Mustangs. April 24, 1945
18. Polish bombers PZL P-37 Los captured by the Germans
19. German Fw-190A-4 fighter emerges from an attack over the Via Balbia road, Libya
20. US Marines on the way to Omaha Beach. Operation Overlord
21. American Marines overcome Japanese defenses in the Battle of Okinawa. A bunker blew up
22. A little acceleration for captured Germans. Leipzig, 1945
23. Search for those who are still alive. Operation Overlord
24. A Frenchman from the 2nd Commando Shock Battalion captures a German soldier hiding in a ditch under broken car
25. "Okinawa minibus." American Marines on the Sherman armor. Battle of Okinawa
26. Soldiers of the Australian mounted troops move on the Bren Carrier armored personnel carrier. Africa, January 7, 1941
27. German two-seat training fighter Fw-190A-8/U1 moves around the airfield using horse-drawn equipment
28. Red Army soldiers fight in Stalingrad
29. German armored personnel carrier Sd.Kfz.251 from the 14MK drives past a column of Pz.Kpfw II tanks in the Serbian city of Nis, Yugoslavia
30. Ju-86K bombers with Hungarian markings in flight
31. German soldiers wash their armored personnel carrier from winter camouflage
32. T-34-85 of the 3rd Belorussian Front in Königsberg
33. Remembering the Volyn massacre, Poles tend to forget about the actions of their nationalists
On June 6, 1944, the village of Verkhovyna was attacked by militants of the NSZ (“People’s Forces of Zbrojny”), a far-right underground organization that competed with the AK. 194 Ukrainians were killed. In the photo is the village of Verkhovyna, Soviet officers(Eastern Poland at that moment was already occupied by the Red Army) are investigating massacres Ukrainians in the village.
34. Everyday life of British Fairey Swordfish pilots and deck crew
35. Columns of British troops march across the Acropolis in liberated Athens
36. A minute of German humor
Well, I have to admit, there are still plenty of people who want to be photographed with weapons in their hands and looking stupid.
37. British airfield technicians service the Hurricane fighter
38. Panther turret, cracked after three hits by 75-mm high-explosive fragmentation shells
39. Lieutenant Edwin Wright demonstrates damage to the propeller blade of his P-47 caused by an anti-aircraft shell.
40. Assembly shop of plant No. 18 named after. Voroshilov. Il-2 is being assembled
Workers in the foreground prepare to hang test bombs.
41. Japanese heavy cruiser "Atago" (Takao class)
42. Hawker Typhoon fires unguided rockets at a railway station. 1944
43. Damaged F4F Wildcat on Midway Island, June 1942.
44. When the topic of France in 1940 comes up, very often there is a photograph of a crying French man.
This photograph always goes with the caption various variations: "French citizens as the Nazis enter Paris."
Even the American NARA archive signed it as: A Frenchman weeps as German soldiers march into the French capital, Paris, on June 14, 1940, after the Allied armies had been driven back across France." 208-PP-10A-3
Although not everything is so clear:
1. If you open Life magazine dated March 3, 1941 (https://books.google.ru/books?id=IUoEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=ru&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false), then on pages 28 and 29 you can find the column "Photo of the week" with a story about the evacuation of banners and standards of French units in North Africa from Marseille on February 19, 1941. And under it is this photograph with the caption: “The Frenchman, out of patriotic feelings, mourns the banners of the lost regiments of his country leaving for Africa.”
2. In the French newspaper dated March 30, 1941, there is also an article about this event with a similar caption.
3. Very often this photo is cropped on the left. The fuller one shows the woman on the left applauding. Quite a strange gesture when your capital is occupied by an enemy. (although you can always say that she sympathizes with the Germans)
4. This is not a photo, this is a frame from a chronicle. For example, it appears in the third part of Frank Capra's film "Why We Fight" called Divide and Conquer at 54:45. A woman can be seen applauding, and her lips read Vive la France - Long live France. In the same chronicle you can see other people applauding and saying this line.
5. In the book Lucien Gaillard - Marseille sous l "occupation, the name of this Frenchman is even given: Jerome Barzetti (this point is the most unfounded)
Of course, no one denies the possibility of finding sobbing Frenchmen on the streets during the occupation of Paris, but this particular photograph most likely does not correspond to the caption with which it is being distributed on the Internet.
45. "Royal Tiger" captured by the Americans
46. Several photographs on the subject of experiments by German designers in the field of aviation weapons
"Rohrbatterie" block of 32 single-shot 30-mm Mk 108 cannons, intended for installation on the Ba-349 "Natter" jet. Also, within the framework of the same project, the option of installing 7 blocks of 7 barrels each (Sonderger?t SG 119) was considered. However, the tests showed unsatisfactory results (the spring-loaded platform did not provide sufficient recoil mitigation from a simultaneous salvo of 49 large-caliber projectiles), and the project was closed.
As one of the means being developed to combat Soviet tanks, the SG 113 system was developed, which consisted of two 75 mm recoilless rifles mounted vertically in the wings of the fighter. The ammunition was to be used with sub-caliber shells with a 50 mm steel core. It was assumed that the shot should have been fired automatically, without the participation of the pilot, at the moment when the plane passed over the target. The idea was good, but a lot of problems arose during the implementation of the program. Firstly, a very low flight altitude was required - from 3 to 8 meters, to ensure reliable operation of the magnetic release device and accuracy of hitting the target. This alone imposed restrictions on the level of the pilot. Secondly, the reliability of the magnetic trigger itself left much to be desired: to distinguish a tank from any other metal structure was problematic. Thirdly, there was complete confusion among the many contracting companies participating in the program, which led to long delays when it was necessary to correct one or another flaw in the system. This whole stream of problems led to the fact that the SG 113 was approved for production only on March 14, 1945, but even then it was planned to refine the system in parallel with production.
And this is the SG 116 system of three modified 30-mm Mk 103 guns, installed in the fuselage of the fighter. The system was tested in two versions: for firing upwards, at aircraft, and downwards, at tanks. Despite the fact that, in principle, the tests were successful, they also did not have time to implement the system - the war was heading towards its logical conclusion.
A block of 7 recoilless versions of the 30 mm Mk 108 cannons, which were supposed to be installed behind the fighter cockpit at an angle of 85 degrees back upward (SG 117 / SG 118). After the first shot, which was initiated by an electric fuse, the entire block began to move downward under the influence of the recoil of each subsequent shot, thus compensating for the load on the aircraft structure, until each barrel was fired. The system was supposed to be activated automatically from a special photocell. 6 Fw-190s were converted for testing, only 4 of them managed to reach the troops. In addition, there were plans to install the system on the He-162.
47. Technicians fire 75-mm underwing anti-tank guns mounted on a Ju-87G-1 tank destroyer
48. Direct hit bombs dropped from Il-2 attack aircraft of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet Air Force on the German auxiliary vessel Franken
And this is what remains of the Franken after the attack by Soviet attack aircraft.
49. Commander of the T-34-76 tank from the 51st Army
50. A German submarine is attacked by an American B-24 Liberator patrol aircraft in the Atlantic.
51. Remains of a German tank Pz.IV ausf. J, destroyed by an American P-47 fighter-bomber
52. French partisan posing with a Bren machine gun in Eray-et-Lure
53. Troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front reach the Dniester
54. Soviet patrol boat of project MO-4 No. 1012 “Sea Soul”
The boat was built during the war years with funds from the marine painter L. A. Sobolev, received from the Stalin Prize for the book “Sea Soul”.
55. Dead Japanese tank crewman
56. Non-162 "Salamadra" being tested in the USSR
57. Heavy German tank "Tiger" with several direct hits on the frontal armor without a single penetration
58. American soldiers near an M4 Sherman tank that sank in the mud near the Italian town of Lattoria
59. "Owl" in the forest. Downed German reconnaissance aircraft Fw-189
60. “Tiger” stuck in the mud
67. British aircraft carrier HMS "Victorious" after being hit by a kamikaze. May 9, 1945
68. Ruins of the royal castle in Königsberg
69. The moment of death of private 331st Infantry Regiment of the 83rd Infantry Division of the US Army Jack Rose
Jack Rose was shot in the head by a German sniper in the Belgian village of Bien as he ran across a heavily targeted intersection. In the photo, Private Rose is already dead.
70. A Finnish junior sergeant fires from a captured Soviet anti-tank rifle PTRD-41
71. The remains of the French tank Char B1-bis No. 309 Rhone, blown up by its own crew on the street of the city of Beaumont. May 16, 1940
A vehicle from the 1st platoon of the 1st company of the 37th tank battalion of the 1st tank division. While driving through the city streets, it stopped due to lack of fuel, and the crew had no other choice but to destroy the tank.
72. The crew of the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious extracts a wounded observer from the deck torpedo bomber Fairey Albacore. March 9, 1942
A group of British torpedo bombers attacked the German battleship Tirpitz off the Norwegian coast. The attack did not have positive results - the target did not receive a single hit, while the British lost two aircraft.
1. Bound Jews protected by Lithuanian auxiliary guards. 1941
2. A column of Jewish women and children under the escort of the Lithuanian “self-defense”.
Time taken: 1941
Filming location: Lithuania, USSR
3. Jewish residents of the city of Siauliai before being sent to be shot near the Kuzhiai station.
Time taken: July 1941
Filming location: Lithuania, USSR
4. Famous photograph the execution of the last Jew of Vinnitsa, made by an officer of the German Einsatzgruppen, which was engaged in the execution of persons subject to extermination (primarily Jews). The title of the photograph was written on the back of it.
Vinnytsia was occupied by German troops July 19, 1941 Some of the Jews living in the city managed to evacuate. The remaining Jewish population was imprisoned in a ghetto. On July 28, 1941, 146 Jews were shot in the city. In August, executions resumed. On September 22, 1941, most of the prisoners in the Vinnitsa ghetto were exterminated (about 28,000 people). Artisans, workers and technicians whose labor was needed by the German occupation authorities were left alive.
5. Sending Slovak Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Time taken: March 1942
Filming location: Poprad station, Slovakia
6. Rabbis in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
7. Jewish rabbis in the Warsaw ghetto
8. SS soldiers guard a column of Jewish prisoners in the Warsaw ghetto. Liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto after the uprising.
Photo from Jürgen Strop's report to Heinrich Himmler in May 1943. The original German headline reads: "Forcibly pushed out of shelter." One of the most famous photographs from World War II.
9. Fey Shulman with Soviet partisans In the woods. Faye Shulman was born in large family November 28, 1919 in Poland. On August 14, 1942, the Germans killed 1,850 Jews from Lenin's ghetto, including Fay's parents, sister, and younger brother. They only spared 26 people, including Faye. Fay later fled into the forests and joined a partisan group consisting mainly of escaped Soviet prisoners of war.
———————Prisoners——
10. Line of Red Army prisoners of war.
1941
The propaganda caption for the photo read: “Among the captured Soviet soldiers there is a woman - even she has stopped resisting. This is a “woman soldier” and at the same time a Soviet commissar who forced Soviet soldiers to fiercely resist until the last bullet.”
11. A German patrol leads captured Soviet soldiers in disguise. Kyiv, September 1941
Time taken: September 1941
Filming location: Kyiv, Ukraine, USSR
12. Killed Soviet prisoners of war on the streets of Kyiv. One of them is dressed in a tunic and riding breeches, the other in underwear. Both took off their shoes, their bare feet were covered in mud - they walked barefoot. The dead have emaciated faces. Eyewitnesses recall that when the prisoners were driven through the streets of Kyiv, the guards shot those who could not walk.
The photo was taken 10 days after the fall of Kyiv by German war photographer Johannes Höhle, who served in the 637th propaganda company, which was part of the 6th German Army that captured the capital of the Ukrainian SSR.
13. Soviet prisoners of war, under the supervision of the SS men, cover the area of Babi Yar with earth where the executed people lie. The photo was taken 10 days after the fall of Kyiv by German war photographer Johannes Höhle, who served in the 637th propaganda company, which was part of the 6th German Army that captured the capital of the Ukrainian SSR.
Babi Yar is a tract in Kyiv that became notorious as the site of mass executions of civilians and prisoners of war carried out by German occupation forces. Here, 752 patients of the psychiatric hospital were shot. Ivan Pavlov, at least 40 thousand Jews, about 100 sailors of the Dnieper detachment of Pinsk military flotilla, arrested partisans, political workers, underground workers, NKVD workers, 621 members of the OUN (A. Melnik faction), at least five gypsy camps. According to various estimates, from 70,000 to 200,000 people were shot at Babi Yar in 1941-1943.
Half-covered trees and bushes at the bottom indicate that the slopes of the ravine were blown up. Some of the prisoners are in civilian clothes. These are probably those who managed to change clothes to escape captivity, but were identified. Along the edges of the ditch stand SS guards, with rifles on their shoulders and helmets on their belts.
14. Soviet soldiers captured near Vyazma. October 1941.
Time taken: October 1941
15. Captured Soviet colonel. Barvenkovsky boiler. May 1942.
In the area of the city of Barvenkovo, Kharkov region, at the end of May 1942, the 6th and 57th were surrounded soviet armies. As a result of the unsuccessful offensive, 170 thousand soldiers and officers of the Red Army died or were captured, including the commander of the 6th Army, Lieutenant General A. Gorodnyansky, and the commander of the 57th Army, Lieutenant General K. Podlas, who went missing.
Time taken: May 1942
16. A captured Red Army soldier showing the Germans the commissars and communists.
17. Red Army prisoners of war in the camp.
18. Soviet prisoners of war. There are two wounded in the center.
19. A German security guard lets his dogs have fun with a “live toy.”
20. Soviet workers during forced labor at a mining enterprise in Beuthen (Upper Silesia) during a break.
Time taken: 1943
Filming location: Germany
21. Captured Red Army soldiers at work in winter.
22. Captured Lieutenant General A.A. Vlasov, the future head of the Russian Liberation Army, being interrogated by Colonel General Lindemann after surrendering to German captivity. August 1942
Time taken: August 1942
23. Soviet prisoners of war with German officers in Germany. Disposal of unexploded bombs.
24. Soviet prisoner of war, after complete liberation by American troops at the Buchenwald camp, points to a former guard who brutally beat prisoners.
Time taken: 04/14/1945
25. A US Army doctor examines a Soviet forced laborer suffering from tuberculosis. He was taken to forced labor in Germany in the coal mines in the city of Dortmund.
Time taken: 04/30/1945
26. Soviet child next to the murdered mother. Concentration camp for civilians "Ozarichi". , Ozarichi town, Domanovichi district, Polesie region. March 1944
Time taken: March 1944
27. Liberated children from the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Time taken: January 1945
------Germans-----
28. Captured German soldiers in Leningrad.
Time taken: 1942
Filming location: Leningrad
29. French from SS and Wehrmacht units in front of General Leclerc from the Free French
French prisoners from SS and Wehrmacht units in front of General Leclerc, commander of the 2nd Armored Division of the Free French.
The prisoners behaved with dignity and even defiantly. When General Leclerc called them traitors and said: “How could you, the French, wear someone else’s uniform?” one of them replied: “You yourself wear someone else’s uniform - an American one!” (the division was equipped by the Americans). They say this angered Leclerc, and he ordered the prisoners shot.
30. German prisoners of war in line to receive food. South of France.
Time taken: September 1944
Filming location: France
31. German prisoners of war are led through the Majdanek concentration camp. In front of the prisoners on the ground lie the remains of death camp prisoners, and the crematorium ovens are also visible. Outskirts of the Polish city of Lublin.
Time taken: 1944
Filming location: Lublin, Poland
32. Return of German prisoners of war from Soviet captivity. The Germans arrived at the Friedland border transit camp.
Friedland.
Filming time: 1955
Location: Friedland, Germany
——————-Hitler Youth———-
33. Captured young German soldiers from the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" under the escort of the military police of the 3rd US Army. These guys were captured in December 1944 during the Allied operation in the Bulge.
Time taken: 01/07/1945
34. Fifteen-year-old German anti-aircraft gunner from the Hitler Youth - Hans Georg Henke, captured by soldiers of the 9th US Army in the city of Giessen, Germany.
Time taken: 03/29/1945
Filming location: Giessen, Germany
35. Fourteen-year-old German teenagers, soldiers from the Hitler Youth, captured by units of the 3rd US Army in April 1945. Berstadt, province of Hesse, Germany.
Time taken: April 1945
Location: Berstadt, Germany
36. Adolf Hitler awards young members of the Hitler Youth in the garden of the Imperial Chancellery. This is one of the last photographs of Hitler. In the center, awarded Iron Crosses 2nd class, are young natives of Silesia: second from right is 12-year-old Alfred Czech, third from right is 16-year-old Willi Hubner, the latter also known from a photograph with Dr. Goebbels in Lauban.
Time taken: 03/23/1945
37. Adolf Hitler awards young members of the Hitler Youth in the garden of the Imperial Chancellery.
38. A boy from the Hitler Youth, armed with a Panzerfaust grenade launcher. The so-called “Last hope of the Third Reich”.
39. Sergeant Francis Daggert with a German soldier, the soldier is only 15 years old. A dozen of these were caught in the German city of Kronach.
Filming time: Kronach, Germany
Location: 04/27/1945
40. Column of prisoners on the streets of Berlin. In the foreground are the “last hope of Germany” boys from the Hitler Youth and Volkssturm.
Time taken: May 1945
Filming location: Berlin, Germany
------Our------
41. Soviet children clean the boots of German soldiers. Bialystok, November 1942
Time taken: November 1942
Filming location: Bialystok, Belarus, USSR
42. 13-year-old partisan intelligence officer Fedya Moshchev. Author's annotation to the photo - “A German rifle was found for the boy”; It's probably a standard Mauser 98K with the stock sawed off to make it easier for the boy to handle.
Time taken: October 1942
43. The commander of the rifle battalion, Major V. Romanenko (in the center), tells the Yugoslav partisans and residents of the village of Starchevo (in the Belgrade area) about the military affairs of the young intelligence officer - Corporal Vitya Zhaivoronka. Back in 1941, near the city of Nikolaev, Vitya joined a partisan detachment, in 1943 he voluntarily joined one of the units of the Red Army that stormed Dnepropetrovsk, and was awarded the Order of the Red Star for participating in battles with the Nazis on Yugoslav soil. 2nd Ukrainian Front.
Stars. 2nd Ukrainian Front.
Time taken: October 1944
Location: Starčevo, Yugoslavia
44. Young partisan Pyotr Gurko from the detachment “For Soviet Power”. Pskov-Novgorod partisan zone.
Time taken: 1942
45. The commander of a partisan detachment presents the medal “For Courage” to a young partisan reconnaissance. The fighter is armed with a 7.62 mm Mosin rifle.
Time taken: 1942
46. Soviet teenage partisan Kolya Lyubichev from the partisan unit A.F. Fedorov with a captured German 9-mm MP-38 submachine gun in a winter forest.
Nikolai Lyubichev survived the war and lived to an old age.
Time taken: 1943
47. Portrait of 15-year-old partisan reconnaissance Misha Petrov from the Stalin detachment with a captured German 9-mm MP-38 submachine gun. The fighter is belted with a Wehrmacht soldier's belt, and behind his boot is a Soviet anti-personnel grenade RGD-33.
Time taken: 1943
Location: Belarus, USSR50. The regiment's son Volodya Tarnovsky signs an autograph on a Reichstag column
The son of the regiment, Volodya Tarnovsky, signs an autograph on a Reichstag column. He wrote: “Seversky Donets - Berlin,” and signed for himself, the regiment commander and his fellow soldier who supported him from below: “Artillerymen Doroshenko, Tarnovsky and Sumtsov.”
51. Son of the regiment.
52. Sergeant S. Weinshenker and Technical Sergeant William Topps with the son of the 169th Air Base Regiment special purpose. Name unknown, age - 10 years old, served as an assistant weapons technician. Poltava airfield.
Time taken: 1944
Filming location: Poltava, Ukraine, USSR
Friends and readers of the site about the most interesting facts in the world is approaching 70th anniversary of the victory V . In 2011, it was published on our portal a series of rare photographs dedicated to the Great Patriotic War . This year we decided to supplement this cycle with several dozen, and maybe hundreds most interesting photos made during the war. In this article we publish 37 rare photographs.
Lieutenant Sergei Vasilievich Achkasov (1919 - 03/14/1943), which carried out two air rams on the Voronezh front, against a MiG-3 fighter.
Lieutenants Pyotr Andreevich Adkin (far right) and Alexander Andreevich Guivik (second from left) with colleagues.
Leonid Utesov on the wing of a La-5F fighter, built with funds from his ensemble “Jolly Fellows”. The moment the vehicle was handed over to the troops.
Flying boat PBY-5A "Catalina" (PBY-5A Catalina) US Coast Guard for repairs in a frozen bay on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
Pilot Boris Eremin on a Yak-1B fighter with a dedicatory inscription “To the pilot of the Stalingrad Front of the Guard, Major Eremin, from the collective farmer of the Stakhanovets collective farm, comrade. Holovaty."
Pilot Semyon Sibirin congratulates his French colleague Albert Littolf on another victory.
Pilots of the separate aviation squadron "Normandy" and the 18th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment near the Yak-1B aircraft.
Aces pilots of the 9th Guards Aviation Division from the Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter G.A. Rechkalova.
Battleship "Arizona" (USS Arizona), sunk by Japanese aircraft on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
A London boy on the ruins of his house, where his parents died after being hit by a German V-2 rocket.
A boy of about seven years old at the site of the last battle, near the exploded Soviet T-34-85 tank. Two more similar tanks are visible behind.
Maria Dementievna Kucheryavaya, 1918 the year of birth,
medical lieutenant. At the front from June 22, 1941. In September 1941, during the fighting on the Crimean Peninsula, she received a shell shock.
Maria Dolina, Hero of the Soviet Union, Guard captain, deputy squadron commander of the 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment of the 4th Guards Bomber Aviation Division.
Maria Timofeevna Shalneva (Nenakhova), a corporal of the 87th separate road maintenance battalion, regulates the movement of military equipment near the Reichstag in Berlin.
March of captured Germans across Moscow - ahead of thousands of columns of soldiers and officers are a group of 19 German generals.
Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov and General D. Eisenhower in Leningrad. D. Eisenhower's visit to Moscow and Leningrad took place in mid-August 1945 after the personal invitation of G. K. Zhukov.
Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov photographed outdoors.
Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Stepanovich Konev(1897-1973) and American General Omar Bradley (1893-1981) at a meeting in April 1945.
Marshal of the Soviet Union, commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky, getting out of the car on the street of Budapest, receives a report from a subordinate.
A medic from the 48th Medical Battalion, 2nd Armored Division, bandages a wounded German soldier.
Less than six months later, during the Soviet offensive at Stalingrad, this army would be surrounded and defeated. On February 2, 1943, the 6th Army surrendered.
Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantaria come with a banner to the roof of the Reichstag. Although this was not the first red banner installed on the Reichstag, it was the one that became the Victory Banner.
Japanese Intelligence Junior Lieutenant Hiro Onoda surrenders to Philippine authorities.
Junior Sergeant Konstantin Aleksandrovich Shuty(06/18/1926-12/27/2004) (left), brother of Mikhail Shutoy, with a fellow soldier, also a junior sergeant.
Junior sergeant, mortarman - Nikolai Polikarpov at a firing position near Kyiv. 1st Ukrainian Front.
The grave of an American pilot made from 12.7 mm caliber cartridges from the machine guns of his P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft. The grave was made on August 8, 1944 by a French refugee couple.
The grave of Soviet soldiers (judging by the three Soviet helmets) and the Maxim machine gun. In the background you can see more than a dozen graves - already German (the helmets on the posts are German).
A US 5th Division Marine killed by a Japanese sniper, shot in the head (bullet hole visible on helmet).
Wow. We continue to look at extremely rare photographs and fascinating stories associated with them. The post is long, there are a lot of photos. Enjoy!
1. Searchlights over Gibraltar during a drill. November 20, 1942
2. The side of the heavy cruiser HMS Sussex with a print left after a Japanese kamikaze hit a Ki-51
3. Captured Japanese equipment on the deck of the aircraft carrier Barnes (CVE-20)
4. A tug pulls the USS Barnes (CVE-20) through the Panama Canal. Captured Japanese equipment is displayed on the flight deck. 
In the foreground is the experimental J5N Tenrai naval interceptor.
5. On the restored border of the USSR
Corporal Gureev I.A. on the border with East Prussia. 1944.
6. German submarine U-156 dies under attack by an American Catalina flying boat.
The boat completed 5 combat cruises, during which it sank 20 ships with a total cargo capacity of 97,504 GRT.
7. British light bomber Fairey Battle
8. German aircraft technicians examine holes in the side of the Bf-109 fighter
The pilot was very lucky: between the place where the aircraft number was written and the cockpit of the Messer there was the main fuel tank. 
9. German heavy tanks crossing a small river
10. A group of “fortresses” blindly bombs a German radar near Bremen
11. Reconnaissance aerial photograph showing a group of transport aircraft at a German airfield
The photo is notable for what kind of aircraft they are: a twin He-111Z (marked with the letter A), a Me-321 glider (letter B) and six heavy transport aircraft Me-323 “Giant”. 
12. Waffen SS infantryman with a Panzerwaffen grenade launcher in his hands. A Soviet T-34 is burning in the background. 1944
13. Explosions of phosphorus Japanese anti-aircraft bombs over a formation of American B-24 bombers in the Iwo Jima area, 1944
The bombs turned out to be completely useless. Structurally, in addition to the phosphorus filling, they were equipped with a high-explosive fragmentation part. The effective radius of destruction with phosphorus was only about 20 meters, with a land mine - even less, and the fragments themselves were ineffective due to the small caliber of the bomb. But you still had to approach the group and accurately drop bombs on the planes, which in itself is very difficult. However, the Japanese, with their characteristic senseless persistence, continued to use these bombs from the moment they were put into service in 1942 until the very end of the war. 
14. A battery of German 88-mm anti-aircraft guns fires at an illuminated target
I don't know how real the photo is. The target is very low, and the gun was somehow very successfully caught at the moment of the shot... 
15. Life of the soldiers of the 2nd Guards Army in the location of their units. Operation to liberate Crimea, 1944
16. Killed German machine gun crew. The helmet didn't save...
17. Soviet soldiers kindly return the weapons they lost to the Wehrmacht
18. "Comet" in the parking lot
19. Warrior
20. Dead soldiers of the Red Army.
21. Post-war photo. Artist on the ruins of Stalingrad. 1945
22.
23. Corporal Bodger reads a poster warning of the possibility of coming under enemy fire. April 1945
The photograph is notable for the fact that it was taken against the backdrop of the famous Panther, which was shot down on Komödienstraße in Cologne. And this car became famous thanks to the battle with American tanks, which was captured on film by Sergeant Bates. 
24. Soviet sappers are establishing a crossing across the Oder River. 1945
25. American B-24 Liberator from the 15th Air Force bombs a synthetic fuel plant in Bratislava. January 1945 
26. Soviet troops cross Sivash. Liberation of Crimea, 1944.
27. Tanks of the 6th Guards Motorized Corps at the railway junction. Dresden, 1945
28. American paratroopers with a group of prisoners of war. 1944
The camouflage uniform attracts attention. Due to the similarity with the equipment of SS units, after some time the Americans were forced to abandon it. 
29. Soviet tanks with troops on board in attack
30. Bf-110C from the 6th group of the 76th heavy fighter squadron over the English Channel during the Battle of Britain. 1940
31. Still respect
The inscription on the cross is in German: “Here lies an unknown Russian soldier.” Summer of 1941.
32. 7th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht fights Russian roads
33. Soldiers of the 82nd US Airborne Division train on cats. The damaged Royal Tiger No. 213 is under distribution
34. Part of the cockpit with windshield and hood of the Il-2 attack aircraft, demonstrating the “boot-by-boot” targeting system
35. T-34, crushed the German light tank Pz.II
36. Janusz Korczak with children before execution in the gas chamber
Janusz Korczak is an outstanding Polish teacher, writer, doctor and public figure. On August 6, 1942, he entered gas chamber in Treblinka, telling fairy tales to unsuspecting children. 
37. Canadian Air Force Supermarine Strander flying boat with survivors on the left wing.
During a rescue operation while landing in the open sea, the boat lost its right float. Trying to balance the plane, several people positioned themselves on the left plane. 
38. Equipment of a German soldier from the Afrika Korps
39. M3A1 tanks from the 241st tank brigade in attack. Don Front, September 1942
In a few hours the brigade will be completely destroyed.
40. Antonina Lebedeva (1916-1943), fighter pilot
41. A pilot of the 332nd Guards Transport and Combat Helicopter Regiment is photographed against the background of the remains of a German Ju-87 bomber. Murmansk region, 80s
Not a military photo, I know, but still...
42. The crew of the IS-2 tank from the 62GvTTP fires from safe distance according to revealed calculations with faust cartridges. Danzig, 1945 
43. Ceremony for accepting the surrender of the Empire of Japan on board the battleship Missouri. September 2, 1945
44. First and only successful landing amphibious seaplane on the deck of an aircraft carrier. 1940
In the photo, the Swordfish floatplane from the English battleship Valiant, which did not have time to return to the ship (Valiant went after the French Strasbourg when the British attacked the French fleet in Mers-el-Kebir so that it would not fall to the Germans), is not having the opportunity to be picked up from the water, makes an emergency landing on the deck of the Ark Royal. Pilot John Edward Breeze. 
45. British experimental analogue of the German Schrage Muzik multiple launch rocket system, installed on the fuselage of the Mosquito heavy fighter 
46. German paratroopers parachute from a DFS-230 glider
47. American A-20 light bomber parked at a field airfield
Judging by the bow section, which has been converted to accommodate 12.8 mm machine guns, this is an assault version of the vehicle.
48. "A little
If you look closely at this military beauty, you can imagine its teeth, and the gaps filled with human meat. Yes, that’s how it was: any military beauty is human death.
(Total 45 photos)
1. Defensive line "Siegfried" on the western border of Germany. A very powerful and beautiful line. The Americans stormed the line for more than six months. We dealt with the lines much faster - it’s a well-known fact: we weren’t behind the price.
2. A German soldier with children in an occupied Soviet village. The two smallest boys are tarring cigarettes. The German, as a distinctly kind person, was embarrassed by his kindness
3. Irma Hedwig Silke, employee of the Abwehr cipher department. Beautiful perky girl. A man of any nationality would be happy. And it looks like!!! ...If I was kissing, I would close my eyes.
4. German mountain rangers in the Narvik area in Norway. 1940 Brave soldiers, they really saw death. Without combat experience, we “never dreamed of” their knowledge, no matter how much we read. However, they have not changed. Maybe not for long new experience I didn’t have time to survive the changes recorded in the wrinkles, but behold, they survived and look at us from there, from their own. The easiest way to dismiss it is “fascists.” But they are fascists - secondly, or even fourthly (like the commander of "Count von Spee", who bought the lives of his people at the cost of his life) - firstly, they are people who just survived and won. And others lay down forever. And we can only borrow from this experience. And it’s good that we only borrow and not receive. Because... - it’s clear.
5. The crew of the twin-engine Messer - 110E Zerstörer after returning from a combat mission. We are happy, not because we are alive, but because we are very young.
6. Eric Hartmann himself. Eric drifted on the first flight, lost the leader, was attacked by a Soviet fighter, barely got away and finally landed the car in a field, on its belly - it ran out of fuel. He was attentive and careful, this pilot. and learned quickly. That's all. Why didn't we have these? Because we were flying on crap, and we weren’t allowed to study, only to die.
7. ...How easy it is to distinguish the best fighter even among military professionals. Find here Dietrich Hrabak, the Hauptmann who shot down 109 planes on the Eastern Front and another 16 on the Western Front, as if he had enough to remember for the rest of his life. In this photo, taken in 1941, on the tail of his car (Me 109) there are only 24 coffins - signs of victory.
8. The radio operator of the German submarine U-124 writes something in the telegram log. U-124 is a German Type IXB submarine. Such a small, very strong and deadly vessel. During 11 campaigns, she sank 46 transports with a total weight of water. 219,178 tons, and 2 warships with a total displacement of 5775 tons. The people in it were very lucky and those with whom she met were unlucky: death at sea is a cruel death. But the future for the submariners would not have been any more pleasant - their fate would have just been a little different. It’s strange that we, looking at this photo, can still say anything about them. One can only remain silent about those who survived there, behind the “100” mark, hiding from depth charges. They lived, and, oddly enough, they were saved. Others died, and their victims - well, that was the war.
9. Arrival of the German submarine U-604 at the base of the 9th submarine flotilla in Brest. The pennants on the deckhouse show the number of ships sunk - there were three. In the foreground on the right is the commander of the 9th flotilla, captain-lieutenant Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, a well-fed, cheerful man who knows his job well. Very accurate and very difficult. And - deadly.
10. Germans in a Soviet village. It's warm, but the soldiers in the cars are not relaxing. After all, they can be killed, and almost all of them were killed. Tea is not the Western Front.
12. German and dead horses. A soldier's smile is a habit of death. But how could it be otherwise when such a terrible war was going on?
15. German soldiers in the Balkans play snowballs. Beginning of 1944. In the background is a Soviet T-34-76 tank covered with snow. -Which of them needs it now? And does anyone remember now, while kicking the ball, that each of them killed?
16. Soldiers of the “Greater Germany” division sincerely support their football team. 1943-1944. Just people. This is the leaven from peaceful life
18. German units, which include captured Soviet T-34-76 tanks, are preparing for an attack during the Battle of Kursk. I posted this photo because it shows better than many that only madmen are on the thrones, and the badges on the armor indicated the polar poles. A stencil phrase, but here, stencil Soviet tanks, under other icons drawn on a stencil, are ready to go to war with their brothers with other icons from other stencils. Everything is done for a sweet soul. It is not managed by people in iron boxes, but by others, and hardly by people at all.
19. Soldiers of the SS regiment “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler” rest during a rest near the road towards Pabianice (Poland). The Scharführer on the right is armed with an MP-28 assault rifle, although it makes no difference what the soldier is armed with. The main thing is that he is a soldier and agreed to kill.
20. German paratrooper with a Flammenwerfer 41 backpack flamethrower with horizontal tanks. Summer 1944. Cruel people, their deeds are terrible. Is there a difference with a machine gunner or a marksman? Don't know. Perhaps the matter would have been decided by the tendency to finish off burning and rushing enemies from service weapons? So as not to suffer. After all, you must admit, it is not the duty of the flamethrower to use a tarpaulin to knock down the flames and save them. But finishing the shot is more merciful. Seems.
21. Look, what a thick-footed guy. ...A good man, a hard worker, - my wife couldn’t be happier. A tank driver means a mechanic, the family’s hope. If he survived, and most likely he did, the photo was taken in the Balkans, then after the war the modern giant of Germany rose.
22. Gunner-motorcyclist of the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf". 1941 Totenkopf - Death's Head. The SS soldiers actually fought better than regular units. And officers of any level were not told “Mr.” Just a position: “Scharführer...”, or “Gruppenführer...” The German Social Democratic Party emphasized that it was a party of equals.
23. And they fell equally on the ice. (soldiers of the police battalion)
24. Homemade and tireless pommel of an officer’s dirk, made during a military campaign. They had time under water. They fired and - time. ...Or there are screws on top and - right away there is nothing.
25. My favorite, one of the humane generals of World War II, one of the best generals then who preserved humanity in the war, is Erwin Rommel. Whatever one may say, namely that he is a seasoned man.
26. And also Rommel. With a knight's cross, somewhere in France. The tank stalled, and the general was right there. Rommel was famous for his unexpected trips through the troops, where even the staff rats lost him, but Erwin Rommel did not get lost and again and again overthrew the enemy defenses, being next to his soldiers.
27. Adored by them. ...Subsequently, Field Marshal General Erwin Rommel was forced to die, since he participated in the assassination attempt on Hitler and the poison he took was the price of the Gestapo abandoning his family.
28. ...At work. It was their job, just like our soldiers - the same. The teeth that were knocked out or, under fixation, also showed. There is war hard labour with increased mortality of those involved.
29. Brave. Before the start of the Western Campaign, SS Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Security Police and SD, completed flight training and participated in air combat in France as a fighter pilot in his Messerschmitt Bf109. And after the fall of France, Heydrich made reconnaissance flights over England and Scotland on a Messerschmitt Bf110. During his service in the Air Force, Heydrich shot down three enemy aircraft (already on the Eastern Front), received the rank of major in the Luftwaffe reserve and earned the Iron Cross 2nd and 1st classes, the Pilot Observer Badge and the Fighter Badge in silver.
30. German cavalrymen in training before World War II. Showing off, 99 percent showing off, however, characterizes “their Kuban people.” This must be something common among riders of any tribe, to be proud and to prance. We... They... Is there a difference? Isn't the difference limited to just one direction of the gun's muzzle?
31. English soldiers captured in Dunkirk, in the city square. Later, these soldiers received assistance through the International Red Cross. The USSR abandoned the Geneva Convention, declaring its prisoners of war traitors. After the war, Soviet soldiers who survived German concentration camps ended up in our camps. Where they didn't get out. "Okay, rush about..."
32. The wedding of the SS Unterscharführer from the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler takes place in the open air (possibly an airfield), because SS men did not get married in church. Behind him are friends from his native Luftwaffe
33. A German in a captured Belgian wedge. Very, very happy to ride. Like any of us.
34. "Tiger" fell into an icy drainage ditch near Leningrad, February 19, 1943. The man doesn't seem to come to his senses. Of course, it’s just that there was no one stronger than him; there was no one within the aimed shot radius of the 88-mm cannon. And suddenly... Poor guy.
43. but, in a word, because of a few. Instead of shooting at each other, they would learn to distinguish between their people, high-ranking scoundrels. But the unfortunate poor things don't know how
44. - everyone, everyone can’t do it, equally. Just know, they are dragging each other because of the Ural or Krupp armor:
