06 April 2011

Some Rare World War II Photographs...

Where have these been hiding for the past 65 years?

-click any to enlarge-
Guam, 1944

Bougainville, 1943

Tinian - 1944

Japanese Kawanishi H8K seaplane after strafing Kwajalein Atoll

Squadron of Nakajima A6M2-N
(Navy Interceptor/Fighter-Bombers) on pontoons 

Snow on deck: USS Philippine Sea - 1945

Gunner's view from P-47 Thunderbolt,
taking out some Japanese fuel supplies.

Interestingly, the P-47 was not only the heaviest, largest and most expensive piston-engined fighter ever built, but the two engineers who designed it for Republic Aviation were a Russian and a Georgian immigrant who -along with many others at the company-
came to the United States escape Stalin's purges




The Battered Bastards of Bastogne -December 1944

Krupp K5 railway gun: 
fired 562lb (280mm) shell/32 miles

US Liberty Ship Robert Rowan hit by Luftwaffe off Sicily, July 1943

German V1, forerunner of today's cruise missiles

Here an RAF pilot "tips" a Fieseler Fi 103 (V1) by flipping it's wingtip with his, thus knocking the flying bomb off-course.  British pilots had to get far too close to shoot them down without being taken out by the explosion... thus the innovative technique evolved

Italian Macchi C-202 Filgore

Corpo Aereo Italiano tri-engine bombers over North Africa

Henschel-Krupp Panzerkampfwagen Tiger aus. B aka "King Tiger"

Junkers 88 loading a torpedo... that's a big bomber for pontoons