Best posts made by captainwalker

April 1, 1941. Libya, North Africa
Rommel has strict orders from Berlin not to advance on Mersa Brega until further reinforcements arrive in the form of 15th Panzer Division at the end of May, however, the need for a fresh water supply from the green mountain (Jebel Akhdar), and the necessity in his opinion of attacking before the British build up their defences, makes him prompt General Johannes Streich to use his 5th Light Division to capture this narrow coastal defile and open the way to Cyrenaica proper.
At first light, German 5th Light Division attacks British 2nd Armoured Division at Mersa Brega while the Luftwaffe provide close air support. British anti-tank guns hold the panzers at bay throughout the day but by 19.00hrs Mersa Brega falls to the Afrika Korps. Under orders not become heavily engaged with German tanks, the British withdraw 30 miles northeast toward Agedabia overnight.

A shell fired by a 88 mm gun explodes on Utah Beach during the landing on June 6, 1944. The target 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast was divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword Beach. Up to 9,000 Germans and some 6,000 Allied forces died during the fighting.

August 13, 1940. German long-range coastal artillery fire their first shells from France over the English Channel towards Dover. The British responded with their own guns. This gunnery duel became known as “Hellfire Corner”, and ended in September 1944 with the liberation of France & Belgium.

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)

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

On this day in history …
Brigadier General James “Jumpin’ Jim” Gavin, CO 82nd Airborne Division, checks his equipment before boarding a C-47 Skytrain plane for the airborne invasion of the Netherlands. (Operation Market Garden) from Cottesmore airfield, Rutland, England. 17 September 1944.
James Maurice Gavin (March 22, 1907 – February 23, 1990)
(Photo and Caption: National Archives and Records Administration Still Pictures Unit SC 232810)
(Colorized by Craig Kelsay from the USA)

#OnThisDay in 1942, the B-17 “Aztec’s Curse” flew a mission over the Solomon Islands. Note the smoke rising in the background from the bombing run. This photo was widely reproduced in the American press at the time. (National Archives)

USS Augusta, USS Midway, USS Enterprise, USS Missouri, USS New York, USS Helena, and USS Macon in the Hudson River in New York, New York, United States for Navy Day celebrations, 27 October 1945.

4 December 1941
With the USS Enterprise CV-6 (The Big E) on the way to Wake Island, it leaves only USS Lexington CV-2 (Lady Lex) at Pearl Harbor with the Japanese closing in for the attack.
Back on the West Coast, USS Saratoga CV-3 (photo) has completed her overhaul at the Bremerton Navy Yard, WA and is underway to San Diego, CA to pick up her air wing and ready for return to service. Thankfully, she would not be at Pearl Harbor on 7 December but would arrive there on 15 December to begin combat operations against the Japanese.

5 December 1941
USS Lexington CV-2 (Lady Lex) sails with Task Force 12 at 0810 to ferry Marine aircraft to Midway, leaving no carriers at Pearl Harbor much to the dismay of the Japanese. A spy reports this information and it reached the Japanese Task Force but they decide it is too late to stop now. The battleships will have to do.
At 1130, the Japanese oilers refuel the carrier group and stand by letting the attacking group go on without them. Some 27 Japanese submarines are in the Hawaii area already.
At 1500, destroyer USS Ralph Talbot DD-390 picks up a sonar contact five miles off Pearl Harbor. Knowing US submarines are not in the area, her Captain asks for permission to fire depth charges. the squadron commander refuses stating it must be a fish…
Images: Rare photo of USS Lexington (CV-2), flagship of Task Force 12, underway in December 1941. LIFE magazine, Bob Landry photographer, shared by Peter DeForest.

Nakajima B5N2 attack bomber taking off from the Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft carrier ‘Akagi’, on the second attack wave on Pearl Harbor on Sunday 7 December 1941

Japanese troops attacking Hong Kong from Shenzhen, China. 8th December 1941

18 December 1944
Adm. Halsey’s 3rd Fleet encounters a typhoon northeast of Samar. Destroyers USS Hull (DD 350), USS Spence (DD 512), and USS Monaghan (DD 354) capsized and went down with practically all hands, while a cruiser, five aircraft carriers, and three destroyers suffered serious damage.
Approximately 790 officers and men were lost or killed, with another 80 injured.
USS Massachusetts BB-59 endured the “Halsey Typhoon” dealing with winds up to 120 MPH and near 60 foot tall waves!

December 21 1944
Private Charles Preston, of Nicholasville, Kentucky, brushes snow from a 30-caliber machine gun mounted on his jeep.
His unit is moving against the German counterattack in the Ardennes during the ‘Battle of the Bulge’ which is barely a week old.

(Image and description courtesy of the Truman Presidential Museum and Library)

(Colourised by RJM)

Lighted MERRY XMAS sign behind 65-ft. Christmas tree lit up by Italian bulbs strung up by Special Services & the 53rd Signal Battalion at the top of Radicosa Pass at 2500 ft. elevation, note direction signs to Bologna as MP stands guard, in the Apennine Mountains Italy - December 1944

LIFE Magazine Archives - Margaret Bourke-White Photographer

77 years ago tonight, the USS Indianapolis CA-35 Sailors and Marines stood watch, played card games, wrote letters, and went to bed one last time aboard their ship
Shortly after midnight on July 30th, 1945, two torpedoes from Japan’s I-58 submarine slammed into Indy’s starboard side and sank her in 12 minutes
1,195 men went into the water.
Nobody received their SOS calls
Five days later, only 316 were still alive.
Explosions, drowning, shark attacks, dehydration, and psychiatric breaks/hallucinations took the rest
Today, we have only two USS Indianapolis Survivors still living; Harold Bray (95) & Cleatus Lebow (98)
Text by Kim Roller
Picture - USS Indianapolis CA-35 at sea painted in MS32 sometime in 1944
From the TimeLIFE Archives

80 Years Ago Today;
Paratroopers of the British 1st Airborne Division landing in fields at Renkum, West of Arnhem in the Netherlands during Operation Market Garden - September 17, 1944

Note some gliders are already on the ground

This is landing zone “X” - it was a landing & drop zone for both gliders & paratroopers.

LIFE Magazine Archives
IWM CL 1171 See less

Paratroopers with the US 82nd Airborne Division get last minute instructions at RAF Cottesmore before boarding C-47s for Operation Market Garden - September 17, 1944

US Army Signal Corps - SC 195702
Edgren Photographer

USAAF C-47s carrying paratroopers flying over Gheel / Geel, Belgium on their way to Holland for Operation Market Garden - September 17, 1944

IWM - Malindine Photographer
IWM BU 918

Finnish patrol at the Rukajärvi area, October 7, 1942.

Sa-kuva / colorized by jhlcolorizing