World War 2 Now & Then

29/05/2025

Operation Cobra Then & Now

Men of the 41st Armored Infantry of the famous 2nd Armored Division observe from cover in the village of Pont Brocard as part of a series of photos taken after a fierce battle for the village after the start of Operation Cobra in July 1944.

Note the HBT camouflage uniforms being worn by both men in this photo.

05/08/2019

Exhausted Australian soldiers along the railway cutting on Broodseinde Ridge in Belgium 🇧🇪. October 1917. WW1(World War 1)

04/08/2019

This image taken by amateur photograspher and Imperial German Army soldier Walter Kleinfeldt depicts the grisly and horrific aftermath of a skirmish between German and Allied soldiers during the very costly Battle of the Somme.
Note: same area (found with research and the help from locals), impossible to find the exact spot.

04/08/2019

Three US Marines receive Communion from a Navy chaplain on the beach during the Battle of Iwo Jima on March 3, 1945.

04/08/2019

German Stuka's over Stalingrad.

The Battle of Stalingrad (August 23, 1942 – February 2nd 1943) was the largest confrontation of World War II, in Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in Southern Russia.

Marked by fierce close quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in air raids, it was the largest (nearly 2.2 million personnel) and bloodiest (1.8–2 million killed, wounded or captured) battle in the history of warfare. After their defeat at Stalingrad, the German High Command had to withdraw vast military forces from the Western Front to replace their losses.

The German offensive to capture Stalingrad began in August 1942, using the 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. The attack was supported by intense Luftwaffe bombing that reduced much of the city to rubble. The fighting degenerated into house-to-housefighting; both sides poured reinforcements into the city. By mid-November 1942, the Germans had pushed the Soviet defenders back at great cost into narrow zones along the west bank of the Volga River.

On November 19, 1942, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, a two-pronged attack targeting the weaker Romanian and Hungarian armies protecting the German 6th Army's flanks. The Axis forces on the flanks were overrun and the 6th Army was cut off and surrounded in the Stalingrad area. Adolf Hi**er ordered that the army stay in Stalingrad and make no attempt to break out; instead, attempts were made to supply the army by air and to break the encirclement from the outside. Heavy fighting continued for another two months. By the beginning of February 1943, the Axis forces in Stalingrad had exhausted their ammunition and food. The remaining units of the 6th Army surrendered. The battle lasted five months, one week and three days, and was a major turning pount in WW2.

04/08/2019

Chancellor Adolf Hi**er, President Paul von Hindenburg, and President of the Reichstag Hermann Goring at a memorial celebration at the Tannenberg Memorial in 1933.

The Tannenberg Memorial was a monument to the German soldiers of the Battle of Tannenberg (1914), the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes and the medieval Battle of Tannenberg (1410). The victorious German commander, Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg, became a national hero, and was later elected Reichspräsident.

In January 1945, as Soviet forces advanced into East Prussia, Hi**er ordered the lead coffins of Hindenburg and his wife to be disinterred and along with some of the regimental standards in the tomb, removed to safety. They were first moved to a bunker just outside Berlin, then to a salt mine near the village of Bernterode, Thuringia (in north central Germany), along with the remains of both Kaiser Wilhelm I and King Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great).
On January 21, 1945, withdrawing German forces planted demolition charges inside the entrance tower and the tower previously housing von Hindenburg's coffin, causing both towers to collapse. On January 22 Germans demolished more of the construction with a further 30 tonnes of explosives. After the war more destruction was caused by looting of bronze and metal from the structure, and even stones and bricks were taken to help with the rebuilding of Olsztynek.

In the spring of 1949, the Polish government ordered the dismantling of the remains of the monument.

Now pic: remains of the Tannenberg Memorial.

25/06/2019

21/06/2019

On April 19, 1775, three companies of British Regulars (about 96 men) guarding the North Bridge opened fire upon 400 Colonists advancing from the opposite side. Major John Buttrick of Concord then issued the fateful command, “Fire fellow soldiers, for God’s sake fire!” For the first time, Colonists were ordered to fire upon the army of their King, and, for the first time, they killed British soldiers. Some of those British Soldiers are still buried at the bridge. —
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, or leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.”
-by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sung as a hymn at the commemoration of the Concord Monument
July 4, 1837

21/06/2019

As close as you could get due to erosion and vegetation.
River Crossing: Men of the 5th Infantry Division, 11th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion make their way across the Moselle river, at Dornot, five miles south of the French city of Metz, France, 1944. (With thanks to locals for helping in finding the spot)

13/06/2019

US troops in the town of Osterode am Harz. Germany, April 1945.

13/06/2019

An American soldier with two German POW's in the city of Leipzig. Germany, April 18, 1945.

29/05/2019

Omaha Beach/WN65