On this day during W.W. 2

@captainwalker thanks for blowing my trumpet. June 13th was my finest day as a tank commander. I missed the anniversary!

A Japanese plane shot down as it attempted to attack a group of carriers, near the Marianas Islands in the Pacific, 13-17th June 1944.
Photo taken from the escort carrier USS Kitkun Bay (CVE-71)

Saipan Landing, 15 June 1944
“The first wave of Marines to hit the Saipan beach, take cover behind a sand dune while waiting for supporting waves to land and start the drive inland.”
From the Photograph Collection (COLL/3948), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections

(Colourised by Jake) Colourised PIECE of JAKE

in 1944, “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” began during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. U.S. pilots and A.A. gunners destroyed 600+ enemy aircraft. Flying a Grumman F6F Hellcat, Navy ace Lt. Alex Vraciu shot down 6 dive bombers in 8 minutes. Vraciu only used 360 rounds of ammunition, which is a remarkable feat of marksmanship.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=marianas+turkey+shoot&view=detail&mid=D04282C90FE61AE8DC68D04282C90FE61AE8DC68&FORM=VIRE

U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) is near-missed by a Japanese bomb, during the Battle of the Philippine Sea on 19 June 1944. The Japanese plane, with its tail shot off, is about to crash, at left.

OPERATION ‘BARBAROSSA’
The invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941
Operation ‘Barbarossa’ - named after the all-conquering Medieval Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I - was launched on 22 June 1941. Over three and a half million German and other Axis troops attacked along a 1,800-mile front. A total of 148 divisions - 80 per cent of the German Army - were committed to the enterprise.
Seventeen panzer divisions, formed into four Panzer Groups, formed the vanguard with 3,400 tanks. They were supported by 2,700 aircraft of the Luftwaffe. It was the largest invasion force to date.
(Colors by Irootoko jr., Royston Leonard, Richard Molloy)

Formation of Martin B-26Bs, taken June 26, 1944. Closest aircraft is B-26B-15-MA (S/N 41-31612). Note the invasion stripes. (U.S. Air Force photo)

24 July 1944 - Battle of Tinian D-Day
T
The 4th Marine Division conducts an amphibious assault on the northwest coast of Tinian, while the 2d Marine Division makes an amphibious assault in the south.

The Japanese conducts a major banzai attack against the beachhead that evening and suffered severe losses. In eight days Marines reach the southern coast of Tinian and all organized Japanese resistance is finished.

On July 30 1945, USS Indianapolis CA-35 was struck by two torpedos from a Japanese submarine, having the ship sink within twelve minutes. After 4 days the Navy spotted survivors from this terrible tragedy. Out of 1,195 crew members, 316 had survived and been rescued.

@captainwalker yea major tragedy

During Operation Pedestal which lasted 12 days between 3–15 August 1942 some 48–60 AXIS aircraft were destroyed, during the daring Operation to resupply Malta which was an absolute vital outpost in the Mediterranean Sea Theatre which lay under siege from June 1940 to November 1942
https://www.facebook.com/War1982/videos/368937704652665

13th August 1944
Le Pleiss Grimoult, Normandy

Major Sir Robin Leigh, second-in-command Sherwood Rangers, poses beside the much photographed ‘Königstiger’, or King Tiger, said to have been knocked out by an infantry mortar round that landed in the turret.

On this day in history … August 14, 1945
V-J Day in Times Square, the iconic photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt, which was published in ‘Life’ magazine in 1945 with the caption, “In New York’s Times Square a white-clad girl clutches her purse and skirt as an uninhibited sailor plants his lips squarely on hers”
Greta Zimmer Friedman, identified later as the ‘nurse’ in the photo, became the subject of perhaps the most iconic photo taken on V-J Day on Aug. 14, 1945. The photo caught the U.S. at a moment of pure relief and represented people letting go of their inhibitions, it captured the jubilance people felt upon the war’s end.
Greta Friedman was a 21-year-old dental assistant, out in Times Square when news of the war’s end broke. George Mendonsa (still alive at 94 ?), who in 2015 confirmed he was the man in the photo, saw Friedman for the first time, spun her around and kissed her.“It wasn’t that much of a kiss,” Friedman, who came forward as the woman in the photo years later, said in a 2005 interview with the Veterans History Project. “It was just somebody celebrating. It wasn’t a romantic event.”
Greta Friedman died at age 92 on September 8, 2016
or was it … Glenn McDuffie, a US Navy veteran who also claims to have kissed the nurse in the photo passed away on March 9, 2014, aged 86
Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt died on August 23, 1995 (aged 96)
Colorized by Sanna Dullaway

August 21, 1942: German soldiers on Mount Elbrus, Europe’s tallest mountain. This was about as far as the German army would reach in the Caucasus. And the feat itself didn’t work wonders in German propaganda: Hitler was livid when he heard about it and thought it was a complete waste of time.

See https://europebetweeneastandwest.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/hubris-arrogance-on-europes-everest-mt-elbrus-a-metaphor-of-german-defeat-in-the-east/ for a recounting of this story.

@kaleu 18,000 feet plus. Oxygen musta been pretty thin : ) Thanks for the read. hadn’t heard of it

“Japanese D3A dive bomber being shot down over USS Enterprise during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, 24 Aug 1942” (US Navy)

August 29, 1944: American troops of the 28th Infantry Division march down the Champs Elysees, Paris, in the ‘Victory’ Parade.

From https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/index.html?dod-date=825

An early PzKpfw II Ausf. C rolls down a sandy road into Poland, September 1939
Although the German offensive was set to start at 4.45 am of September 1, at 4.34 am Oberleutnant Bruno Dilley, part of a flight of 3 Ju-87 Stuka from 3./StG1, pressed the release button and a stick of bombs fell from his black bird.
The target was the railroad bridge at Dirschau, in Polish territory south of Danzig. The objective: to destroy or damage the demolition charges set on the bridge by the Polish defenders. All 3 Stuka hit their target but with negative results.
Hitler’s war had started… 11 minutes ahead of schedule.
Original: Bundesarchiv
Color by: In Colore Veritas

@captainwalker nice pic. yea they changed the white crosses on the panzers pretty quickly.

Seems kinda wild it was 82 years ago.

Nasty Huns!