British infantrymen in early December 1943 cling to the face of Monte Camino in Italy, described by one Tommy as a “steep solid rock leading God knows where.” Stone breastworks offered little protection against German mortar fragments or the frigid cold. “A small earthquake added to the unpleasantness,” a Scots Guard account noted.


On steep solid rock

A pilot of No. 152 (Hyderabad) Squadron RAF climbs into the cockpit of Supermarine Spitfire Mark VC, JG871 L-E, shortly after the unit re-equipped with the type, at Souk-el-Khemis ("Paddington"), Tunisia, early 1943. Victor Sierra 

In the middle of the palms

The sun rises over the airfield at Menidi/Tatoi, Greece, as ground crew remove the covers from Bristol Blenheim Mark I, L8374 “X”, of No. 84 Squadron RAF, for a morning raid over Albania. L8374 was one of two Blenheim shot down when nine aircraft of the Squadron bombed the Kucera oil fields on 22 December 1940. Equipped with Bristol Blenheim I on February 1939, the No.84 moved from Egypt to Greece, as part of the British expeditionary force sent to fight the Italians, in November 1940. On April 1941 after the German attacks in the Balkans, the Squadron moved to Iraq. Victor Sierra