Chester Martin - Boone, Iowa

V-E Day celebrations in Toronto, Canada; May 1945.

Victory in Europe celebrated

French civilians reading invasion news in Paris; 1940.


German invasion of France

Princess Elizabeth of the British royal family stands next to a military truck of the British Auxiliary Territorial Service of which she was a serving member; 1945.

Princess on active duty

The Japanese people listen to the speech of Emperor Hirohito about the surrender of the country in World War II.
   Emperor Hirohito's speech was the first speech in Japanese history in which a monarch addressed the people directly; August 15, 1945.

 Hear it in disbelief

Volunteers who joined the Volkssturm receive weapons in Berlin. They have Steyr Mannlicher M1890 carbines in their hands; November 1944.

Neither too young nor too old

Princess (now Her Royal Highness) Elizabeth II sits in the cabin of an Austin K2/Y British Heavy Military Ambulance; 1945.

Aiding the War Effort

Volkssturm militias in a trench during an exercise in East Prussia, Germany. The militia members are armed with 8mm Mannlicher M1895 rifles; November 1944.

Last line of defense

British soldiers and Londoners celebrate the victory over Germany in Parliament Square. May 8, 1945.

Celebration

People learn about the Sunday morning December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and other places. End of neutrality...

Somewhat expected surprize news

Volkssturm squad at the oath ceremony in Berlin; November 1944.

Getting ready to help defend the Fatherland

Volkssturm militias swear allegiance to Hitler.  The militia members are armed with Panzerfaust 60 grenade launchers, machine gunners with MG-42 machine guns. They stand closer to the center. At the far right is the 88mm Panzerschreck grenade launcher (RPzB 54); Germany, November 1944.

Volkssturm swearing in

German women pose at the police station in the German town of Recklinghausen, 10 miles north-west of Dortmund with warm clothes to be sent to the eastern front for Wehrmacht soldiers fighting there; January - March 1942.

Warm clothes for the soldiers

A corner of a bombed church in Dover (UK) - November 1941

"Built in 1910, the Wesleyan Chapel on St Martin's Hill (Folkestone Road) was bombed in 1917 and rebuilt in 1920. It was later bombed again in 1941 and rebuilt again in 1949"

taken from fb/Color by Jecinci/WW2 Colorised

History repeated

Germans - civilians and military - prepare food for families who have lost their homes in Allied bombing raids.


A community effort

Rosie the Riveter inspects the .50 caliber ammunition belt attached to the M2 machine gun at the Twin Cities Ordnance Plant in Ramsey County, Minnesota, USA; circa 1942.
 


Women doing their patriotic duty

Americans - civilians and military - dance on the White House lawn on the day the war with Japan ends; Washington, D.C., September, 1945.

Celebrating the end of war with Japan

Japanese girls in tradional suits show a funny anti Churchill propaganda picture.
DVX

Japanese propaganda

Military vehicles assemble on the street, waiting to embark on the Normandy invasion, while on the other side of the wall, life goes on like normal.
taken from fb/Mike McCollum

Two worlds

Celebrating VJ Day outside the Criterion Hotel in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia; 15 August 1945.

Celebration down under

American troops at the Parisian Rainbow Corner Red Cross Club celebrate victory over Japan, posing with the Paris Post newspaper, with the headlines "JAPS QUIT"; August 1945.

Joy at the Red Cross Club

Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain (04.08.1900 - 30.03.2002) and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Western Europe, Lieutenant General John S.H. Lee (01.08.1887 - 08.30.1958) in the hospital, at the bedside of a wounded American paratrooper.

Visiting a wounded warrior

Princess Elizabeth (future Queen of Great Britain, Elizabeth II) is working as a truck mechanic.
In February 1945, she joined the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service (WATS) and was trained to do her part in the war effort. 

Royalty in action

Civil War veterans had the chance to inspect modern weaponry at a Grand Army of the Republic encampment in Pittsburgh in August 1939.

"No such artillery pieces as this new anti-tank gun were included in the military equipment of these ex-soldiers when they fought in the Civil War.

That's why it proves of such interest to Lewis H. Easterly, 87, left, and J.W. Petro, 88, both of Colorado, at the G.A.R. encampment in Pittsburgh."

This photograph appeared in American newspapers on September 1, 1939 - the same day that German forces invaded Poland and sparked the Second World War.

(Photograph: The Plain Speaker, Hazleton, PA, September 1, 1939) //taken from fb

If only we had those....

Time to relax and sunbathe on the beach at Bournemouth, Dorset, UK, on Bank Holiday Monday, 28 August 1944.

As part of the British anti-invasion preparations in 1940, beaches were blocked with entanglements of barbed wire, usually in the form of three coils of concertina wire fixed by metal posts, or a simple fence of straight wires supported on waist-high posts.

(In the United Kingdom and Ireland a bank holiday is a public holiday, when banks and many other businesses are closed for the day. The Late Summer Bank Holiday falls on the last Monday in August

Colour by RJM /taken from fb /WW2 colorised

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