WWII Pictures In Color

http://demonicious.com/20090210/wwii-in-pictures/

You don't get to see many color photos of WWII. There are a ton here.

Interesting stuff.....

that is awesome. I have been watching a show on cable called "Hitlers Bodyguards", this has had alot of video footage in color of Hitler and the Nazis. I don't know if its a mini series documentary or what it is.

Some great audio links:

WWII Radio news updates:
http://www.archive.org/details/worldwarIInewsOTRKIBM

WWII G-Day invasion radio broadcasts entirety:
http://www.archive.org/details/Complete_Broadcast_Day_D-Day

Newsie video reels people saw before motion pictures started on WWII progress:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=45...=dday&hl=en

WWII survivors site they post their war pictures at (all nations not just Allied):
http://www.lonesentry.com/

WWII in color:
http://www.ww2incolor.com/

And just so I can have more me time here, back in 2003 I purchased this certificate at a yard sale in Idaho for .50 cents. I just could not see history get thrown away after the yard sale. A lot of good men served with that ship and it would be a shame to throw it out.

This is a USS Saint Lo (formerly Midway), CVE-63 Plank Owner's certificate, dated October 23, 1943. The Saint Lo was the second ship to be named Midway, the Saint Lo was renamed when it was decided to give the name Midway to a larger fleet carrier.

The Saint Lo was lost during the Battle Leyte Gulf off Samar Island in the Philippines on October 25, 1944 after being hit by a kamikaze.

History of USS ST. LO:

USS ST. LO was laid down as CHAPIN BAY 23 January 1943; renamed MIDWAY 3 April 1943; launched 17 August 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Howard Nixon Culter; and commissioned 23 October 1943, Capt. F. J. McKenna in command.

After shakedown on the west coast and two voyages to Pearl Harbor and one to Australia carrying replacement aircraft, MIDWAY joined Rear Admiral Bogan's Carrier Support Group 1 in June for the conquest of the Marianas. She furnished air coverage for transports and participated in strikes on Saipan, 15 June. She fought off several air attacks, but suffered no damage during her support of the Saipan campaign. On 13 July, she sailed for Eniwetok for replenishment, before joining the attack on Tinian, 23 July. Furnishing air support for ground forces on the island and maintaining an antisubmarine patrol, MIDWAY operated off Tinian until she again headed out for supplies, 28 July.

MIDWAY remained at anchor in Eniwetok Atoll until she got underway 8 August, for Manus Island, arriving 13 August. Exactly a month later, she sortied with TF 77 for the invasion of Morotai. Catapulting her first plane to support the landings 15 September, she continued to assist American troops ashore and to provide cover for the transports through the 23rd.

After a refueling period, MIDWAY resumed air operations in the Palaus until returning to Seeadler Harbor, 3 October. There, word arrived that the escort carrier had been renamed ST. LO, 10 October, to free the name MIDWAY for a new giant attack carrier and to commemorate an important victory of American troops in France who had captured the strongly defended town, ST. LO, 18 July 1944.

ST. LO departed Seeadler Harbor 12 October to participate in the liberation of Leyte. Ordered to provide air coverage and close air support during the bombardment and amphibious landings, she arrived off Leyte 17 October. After furnishing air support during landings by Ranger units on Dinagat and Homonhon Islands in the eastern approaches to Leyte Gulf, she launched air strikes in support of invasion operations at Tacloban on the northeast coast of Leyte. Operating with Rear Adm. C. A. F. Sprague’s escort carrier unit, "Taffy 3" (TU-77.4.3), which consisted of six escort carriers and a screen of three destroyers and four destroyer escorts, ST. LO steamed off the east coasts of Leyte and Samar as her planes sortied from 18 to 24 October, destroying enemy installations and airfields on Leyte, Samar, Cebu, Negros, and Pansy Islands.

Steaming about 60 miles east of Samar before dawn 25 October, "Taffy 3" launched the day's initial air strikes. At 0647, Rear Admiral Sprague received word that a large Japanese fleet was approaching from the northwest. Comprised of four battleships, eight cruisers, and 12 destroyers, Vice Adm. Takeo Kurita's Center Force steadily closed and at 0658 opened fire on "Taffy 3".

So began the Battle off Samar--one of the most memorable engagements in U.S. naval history. Out numbered and outgunned, the relatively slow ships of "Taffy 3" seemed fated for disaster, but they defied the odds and gamely accepted the enemy's challenge.

ST. LO accelerated to flank speed, and, despite fire from enemy cruisers, she launched her planes ordering the pilots to attack the Japanese task force and proceed to Tacloban airstrip, Leyte, to rearm and refuel. As salvos fell "with disconcerting rapidity" increasingly nearer ST. LO, her planes, striking the enemy force with bombs, rockets, and gunfire, inflicted heavy damage on the closing ships.

By 0800, the enemy cruisers, which were steaming off her port quarter, closed to within 18,000 yards. ST. LO gamely responded to their salvos with rapid fire from her single 5-inch gun.

At 0830, five enemy destroyers steamed over the horizon off her starboard quarter. The closing ships opened fire from about 14,500 yards, and, as screening ships engaged the cruisers and laid down concealing smoke, ST. LO shifted her fire and for the next hour traded shots with the guns of Japan's Destroyer Squadron 10. Many salvos exploded close aboard or passed directly overhead.

Under heavy attack from the air and harassed by incessant fire from American destroyers and destroyer escorts, the enemy cruisers broke off action and turned northward at 0920. At 0915, the enemy destroyers, which were kept at bay by the daring and almost single-handed exploits of JOHNSTON (DD 557), launched a premature torpedo attack from 10,500 yards. As the torpedoes approached the escort carriers, they slowed down. An Avenger torpedo-bomber from ST. LO strafed and exploded two approaching torpedoes and a shell from her 5-inch gun deflected a third from a collision course with her stern.

At about 0930, as the enemy ships fired parting salvos and reversed course northward, ST. LO scored a direct hit amidships on a retreating destroyer. Five minutes later, she ceased fire and retired southward with the surviving ships of "Taffy 3".

At 1050, the task unit came under a concentrated air attack; and during the 40 minute battle with enemy suicide planes, all escort carriers but FANSHAW BAY(CVE 70) were damaged. One plane crashed through ST. LO's flight deck at 1051, and exploded her torpedo and bomb magazine, mortally wounding the gallant carrier. ST. LO was engulfed in flame and sank half an hour later, leaving a cloud of dense black smoke to mark her watery grave.

ST. LO received the Presidential Unit Citation for the heroism of her crew in the Battle off Samar and four battle stars for World War II service.

________________________________________________________________

The best book I've read on the Battle off Samar was from author James D. Hornfischer called The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.

Staler book on how small USN DD's and DE' fought and turned IJN - CA's CE's and both the Yamato and Musashi battleships.

Well worth reading!

Wow, wicked stuff. I had just visited a WWII vet I've been friends with since I met his kids. He just moved into a retirement village from our block last year. He just turned 92 and we were talking about how he got through some of the war again today.

He once told me he was in Hitler's bunker just a couple of hours after the allies rolled in.

WOW!!! What a story. Good that you saved the certificate. With that you save also part of the spirit of that awesome crew who fought and died for us. That must be a very good book for sure.

Bubba, I think I watched the same in a french-german co channel. Very good footage indeed. It focuses on Hitler´s "most important" men. One by one.

I must have overlooked this thread completely so far, but when I see the incredible pictures Atomm linked, I have to think that it is because of them soldiers that the German ppl recuperated relatively fast after WWII and build up the country again, were able to save half of Berlin and go ahead - having a perspective. Never did I want to imagine a victory on the German side.

Duck that is cool stuff. In college I did alot of research into WWII naval history. I was working to figure out where, when and how my grandfather was mortally wounded. I found the ships he was on and researched their wartime records. I ended up finding he was wounded off Anzio on a small ship that very few have ever heard of. Seems he was either part of a kamakazi attack or a ship engine that blew up. His military records don't reveal anything in that respect. He was severely wounded from scrapnel and spent quite a bit of time in the VA hospital once he got transferred off his ship. His family had some sort of severe rift about that time that I cannot get anyone to talk about (all the people who would know are dead now), of his friends they all told different stories, but the most feasible is that he was really crazy when he got back, not to mention injured. He had enough time to have a daughter that died at age 4 and a son who was born a month after he died. Of course that son is my father.

Long story short, this is cool stuff. Still everytime I see a group of WWII picts I see at least one that looks like him (from family photos). Wish I could find out more, but I am afraid possibly such information is lost to history. For instance we have a cool German sword, no idea where its from.

Bubba, it's worth trying to dig deeper, if only for your piece of mind.
I just found my Fathers draft and enlistment papers for his WWII service at ancestry.com.

Were paying to have them reproduced and will have a set made for him so he can put it on his WWII memorabilia wall.

Years ago, I tracked down his old unit - the 86th Infantry "Black Hawk" Division


They went from a WWII Infantry Division to a Lance Nuke Missile Regiment in Chicago and in the early 90's were being totally disbanded (Thanks Bill!) I asked if there was any Division insignia I could obtain for dad, my request made it all the way up to the Division commanding General, he made me promise to get dad to wright a hale and fare well for the division disbandment, and in return he gave dad the remaining WWII Division conquest map showing their WWII movements, dates and battles, the division "year book"

signed inside with the Major Gen and all his staff down to the company commanders as a thank you to a surviving 86th member for his service to country.

They also gave him a Division flag.
All of this is in our living room back in N.H. All it took was some digging on my part.

Yeah basically learning about it brought me realize my own mortality, led to a need to stop pursuing it. At some point it'll be picked back up. I am a big genealogy person and this is a subject that intrigues me most. I was so excited when I got his records sent to me, and such a let down that they were so incomplete and lackign in facts.

The stuff you have is really cool though.

As for the ancestory.com stuff, is that new to have military records, I just ended my account in Decemeber, I never noticed it for anything newer than civil war records.

My Grandfather passed away last June. He was about to turn 82. His mother signed him into the Navy before he turned 18. He was at Pearl Harbor a few months after the attack The most he ever talked about was spending time in Hawaii and building the airfields at Okinawa. He was a SeaBee.

My grandmother was married prior to my grandfather. Her first husband died in Europe. My father has his service pistol. It's strange, but I may not be here if things had worked out differently.

Atomm wrote:My Grandfather passed away last June. He was about to turn 82. His mother signed him into the Navy before he turned 18. He was at Pearl Harbor a few months after the attack The most he ever talked about was spending time in Hawaii and building the airfields at Okinawa. He was a SeaBee.

I think we've talked about this before, but my Grandfather was a SeaBee in the Pacific as well. Wouldn't it be the strangest coincident if they were in the same unit? I'll do some digging and see if I can't find out where he was and in what unit.

And as always... Seabees are a cool and ballsy unit. I can't tell you how close I came to becoming a Seabee myself.

Bubbaspanky wrote:And as always... Seabees are a cool and ballsy unit. I can't tell you how close I came to becoming a Seabee myself.

Which held you back: the cool or the ballsy?

Ed McMahon
"Hi-ooooo!"
/Ed McMahon

😛

My stepfather was in the Marines, signed up after Pearl Harbor. Spent time in the Pacific. I forget all the islands he was on, but Iwo Jima was one of them. He doesn't talk about it, but I had an assignment in school that required me to interview a vet. Nasty shit.

It was the requirement that I would have to spend 1 year on a sub with the possibility that it is underwater the whole time, and the possibility that you couldn't contact your family for a year.

Bubbaspanky wrote:It was the requirement that I would have to spend 1 year on a sub with the possibility that it is underwater the whole time, and the possibility that you couldn't contact your family for a year.

Dude, they make subs in your size? Imagine a year spent at a grade-school desk. I imagine it would be about the same thing.

Bubbaspanky wrote:It was the requirement that I would have to spend 1 year on a sub with the possibility that it is underwater the whole time, and the possibility that you couldn't contact your family for a year.

WAAA HAA HAAAA - I use to make para scopes for subs at Kollmorgen (East Hampton Mass Bubba) a great joke about subs was

"300 men go down and 150 couples come up"

I can see you enjoying that duty.....

This was my Grandfathers enlistment, first one in the door on Dec 8, 1941.

Cool.

put that up just for you! 😛

Sarge, I think my parents found out more about his service recently. I'll see what I can dig up.

Bubbaspanky wrote:put that up just for you! 😛

If you have just 10% of your Grandfathers good looks you must be a hell of a good looking man, Bubba. With the candidates here I would be rather not so open hearded with my private things.
😉

I was just talking to my parents - who r with me right now - about my Grandfathers. My father´s father had 7 children and due to a typical child sickness called "Kinderlaehmung" a bad right leg, but still got drawn. It must have been due to a shit ass Ortsfuehrer they had. This fucker always sat in church on the last bench to listen what the priest said. Sometimes the priest was talking private stuff too. Bad thing in those times. They sent him back after a couple of months. Never had any frontline fights.

My other Grandpa, father of three, a good singer and very handsome man either, was recalled by his company, Shell. So he only had to work at the office for 6 months for the army. After that back to the company.

My father went to war with 17. He was one of the last and ppl thought he would not make it back. He never made it to a frontline, but landed in a siberian camp, where he spent four years of his youth under incredible hard circumstances, had a pneumonia, almost died, but got saved by a good Doctor, who used primitive methods to heel him. It worked. He does not like to talk about that time, but sometimes he has his moods...and is talkative.

If he wouldn´t have made it back, he would never have met my beautiful mother, danced with her and fell in love. Then they had 4 daughters. I happen to be one of them. 🙂

Bubbaspanky wrote:This was my Grandfathers enlistment, first one in the door on Dec 8, 1941.

The chief in that pic looks like my ex's father. Was the chief a relative of yours as well, Bubba? I notice his name is missing too.

saintchism wrote:My father went to war with 17. He was one of the last and ppl thought he would not make it back. He never made it to a frontline, but landed in a siberian camp, where he spent four years of his youth under incredible hard circumstances, had a pneumonia, almost died, but got saved by a good Doctor, who used primitive methods to heel him. It worked. He does not like to talk about that time, but sometimes he has his moods...and is talkative.

If he wouldn´t have made it back, he would never have met my beautiful mother, danced with her and fell in love. Then they had 4 daughters. I happen to be one of them. 🙂

Shit, your dad was sent to SIBERIA?!?!? Jesus. Too bad he couldn't have surrendered to the British or Americans. Everyone suffers in war, but the Russians took a real beating, and consequently they weren't kind to their German prisoners.

My wife's family (mothers side) is German - actually Polish (East Prussia)
Her mother and 3 aunts made it out of Poland on wooden toboggans.

Her mother kind of remembers '43 but her oldest sister who also lives here in town has many good and bad memories about the German invasion......

I love talking to her. but she never talks about her forced induction in to the Hitler youth.
(her story was published in the local paper, I'll see if I can drum it up)

Their father (wife's Opa ) Grandfather)) was German Wehrmacht who just could not take the killing and followed his conscience and surrender to the Russians he also ended up in Siberia.
He had pancreatic problems and a Jewish intern operated on him with tableware to keep it from rupturing...... I never met the man, he died before we were married, but they all tell stories of his German military days.

I would have LOVED to talk with a Axis military member.

Duck wrote:My wife's family (mothers side) is German - actually Polish (East Prussia)
Her mother and 3 aunts made it out of Poland on wooden toboggans.

Her mother kind of remembers '43 but her oldest sister who also lives here in town has many good and bad memories about the German invasion......

I love talking to her. but she never talks about her forced induction in to the Hitler youth.
(her story was published in the local paper, I'll see if I can drum it up)

Their father (wife's Opa ) Grandfather)) was German Wehrmacht who just could not take the killing and followed his conscience and surrender to the Russians he also ended up in Siberia.
He had pancreatic problems and a Jewish intern operated on him with tableware to keep it from rupturing...... I never met the man, he died before we were married, but they all tell stories of his German military days.

I would have LOVED to talk with a Axis military member.

Wehrmacht ppl were mostly against all that killing. Any logical thinking grown up had to be against it. But getting militant was another step further. I adore all those who dared it. Tho for most of them it was just a natural thing to do. Nothing heroic.

All the stories about Siberia are heavy duty. Operations had to made without any anesthesistics for example. Impossible for me to even think about something like that. But it saved their lives. What this Jewish internist did for your wife´s Opa was what saved him probably.

My father´s life was saved by that brave Doctor who dared pinching his lungs full of water with a big ass surringe and drew it out. If it would have stayed inside it gets hard and you are suffocating.

My father´s family is from Schlesien. From a small town not very far from Breslau. (Breslau had the first University of Europe.) Its Polen since after the war. A beautiful rich country. Heavy stories that piece of land with its ppl had to go thru since the Mongolen invaded. The mongol influence you can see on some ppl. They have almond formed eyes. 🙂 I want to visit this town. My father and his brother have been there and are in good contact with the polish family who lives there now.

For me it is clear tho. My roots are in East Germany (mother) and Polen (father). And I talking whenever I can with the old ppl that come to here on vacations. Germans, Checs, Hungarians, Polish, etc. Its super interesting. That way my father got to meet a nice old lady from a neighbour town who escaped to the West and they could talk a little. My mother was with him. They are still very much in love. Its unbelievable.

Thanks for sharing Saint. It's really interesting to see the other side of this. As American's, we don't always view Germans from WWII as people just like us.

Germans are people too?? 😛

Saint, just curious, but were you born behind the iron curtain?

No. I must say for Gods sake no, Lexx. I met lots of ppl from eastern Germany here on the island. Hole different story. Most say it was not that bad at all as they like to show in films. The ones I know were mostly from privilegded families of some kind or the other.
No. My family lived close to Duesseldorf, at the river Rhein where I was also born. West-Germany. Close to the border of the Netherlands. My elder sister got married to a Holander a big man who looks on photos like an actor who could play the role of Jesus in any movie easily.🙂
As my father was able to talk some russian we went for vacation to Bulgaria. This was a country where also ppl from eastern Germany - in times of the iron curtain - were allowed to spend theirs.
So he made friends with some easterners - Ossis. (We are called Wassis by them.) Friendships that still exist today. 30 years after.
In the opinion of most ppl tho the reunion with the East was to blame for following bad economics due to high expenditure when their money got changed, their pensions had to be paid for etc.
Quite frequent is the saying: they would have done better leave it like it was. What is sooo stupid. The separation still exists in the head of most common folk. I am saying that on purpose when I talk about history with anybody: I am emphazising that I come from - meaning I have my genetic roots in the east.

Need to correct my last post not pancreas but appendix - had a rusty appendectomy.

DocJon wrote:Shit, your dad was sent to SIBERIA?!?!? Jesus. Too bad he couldn't have surrendered to the British or Americans. Everyone suffers in war, but the Russians took a real beating, and consequently they weren't kind to their German prisoners.

He did not surrender. He was send on May, 5th 1945 to the front, but captured before without any time to fight. On May 8th 1945 the war was officially declared to be over.

I am not used to neither nowadays military terminology nor WWII´s. Have to be more specific without going too much into detail.

Me: Wehrmacht ppl were mostly against all that killing. Any logical thinking grown up had to be against it. But getting militant was another step further. I adore all those who dared it. Tho for most of them it was just a natural thing to do. Nothing heroic.

Reading this I have to admit it sounds stupidly wrong.
What I meant here was the generality which were against most of Hitlers decisions, but Hitler just substituted them with others.

And it sounds as if this could have been what Bubba has seen on TV.