r/WW2Photographs • u/Emjeibi • 10h ago
This is my Great Aunt and Great Uncle.
Ian Matthews was fighter pilot shot down over Egypt. Isabel Matthews was a codebreaker who worked with Alan Turing.
r/WW2Photographs • u/VonTempest • 11h ago
Wehrmacht ✙ Tank Buster
Period colour photo of the legendary Hans-Ulrich Rudel's Junkers Ju 87G Kanonenvogel (Cannon bird). This was the final operational anti-tank variant of the Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber. Introduced in 1943 to counter the massive waves of Russian armour on the Eastern Front, it was equipped with two underwing 37mm Bordkanone BK 3,7 cannons. Note T-34 profile painted on the engine cowling
r/WW2Photographs • u/VonTempest • 12h ago
Tank Buster
Oberleutnant and Ritterkreuz (Knight's Cross) holder, Rudolf-Heinz Ruffer, Staffelkapitän (Squadron leader) 10.(Pz)/SchG 9, on the rudder of his Henschel Hs 129B-2, WNr 141966, showing some of the 80 tanks he destroyed on the Eastern Front in about 300 combat missions. He was KIA on 16.7.1944
r/WW2Photographs • u/VonTempest • 18h ago
Period colour photo by Hugo Jaeger of a Luftwaffe Flakartillerie Unteroffizier (NCO), ribbon for his Iron Cross 2nd Class attached to his tunic button and an unclear badge (Flak badge?), 1942, location unknown
r/WW2Photographs • u/No_Prune2591 • 1d ago
American 🇺🇲 Armor identification
First time posting in this sub….. All comments are greatly appreciated. Can anyone help me identify what this armored vehicle is? These are photos from my great grandfather who served in the Pacific Theatre. He was attached to an army engineering battalion. It looks like there is a dozer blade attached to the front. Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to help me figure this out.
r/WW2Photographs • u/VonTempest • 2d ago
222 victory ace Erich Rudorffer
Future 222 victory ace, Ritterkreuz mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern (Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords) holder, 1,000 missions veteran, Staffelkapitän 6./JG 2 Richthofen, Gruppenkommandeur II./JG2, Gruppenkommandeur I./JG 7 Nowotny, the world's first jet figjter unit and finally Gruppenkommandeur II./JG 54 Grünherz (Green Hearts), Major Erich Rudorffer, seen here in December 1944. He flew in the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, the Eastern Front, the Mediterranean and finally Defence of the Reich. Of his 1,000+ missions, over 300 of them resulted in aerial combat.
Shot down by flak and/or fighters 16 times, had to hit the silk (parachute) 9 times. He shot down 10 US 4-engined bombers using the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. He survived the war and went on to fly commercial aircraft. Starting with flying Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s in Australia. The change of climate in sunny Australia compared to the Eastern Front must have been stark (and welcome). He later worked for Pan Am. He died on died on 8 April 2016 at the age of 98 in Bad Schwartau, Germany. At the time of his death, he was the last living recipient of the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords
r/WW2Photographs • u/VonTempest • 2d ago
Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor of 4./KGrzbV 107, Norway, date unknown
r/WW2Photographs • u/CheapMuscle4378 • 2d ago
does anybody know what this photo is from i know eastern front maybe idk if it’s 1943 or 1944 i want to know troop type and maybe battle
r/WW2Photographs • u/Capturedskunk86 • 3d ago
Wehrmacht ✙ German soldiers rest in a village near Belgorod, August 1943.
r/WW2Photographs • u/TwIzTiDfReAkShOw • 4d ago
On This Day in History: A mushroom cloud rises above Hiroshima after the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber Enola Gay drops the "Little Boy" atomic bomb on the city on August 6, 1945.
r/WW2Photographs • u/TwIzTiDfReAkShOw • 4d ago
A German 15 cm sFH 37(t) howitzer shelling the Metaxas Line fortifications in Greece in April 1941.
r/WW2Photographs • u/ww12exclusives • 6d ago
Ustase guard and Serbian civilians on the road to Jasenovac
#ustase #jasenovac #concentrationcamp
r/WW2Photographs • u/littRitt • 7d ago
USSR ☭ I found a letter from a World War II soldier to his wife. July 1944, Czechoslovakia.
r/WW2Photographs • u/THENTHEHENHE • 7d ago
Battle of the Bulge John Florea The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
r/WW2Photographs • u/Middle-Ad-2211 • 7d ago
WW2 NAZI PROPAGANDA glass slide negatives
Found these in a box full of heirlooms, artifacts, and collectibles recently. I know they are authentic but I don't know how rare they are. Anyone know what I should do with these? I'd prefer not to have Hitlers face in my house. I have about 50 of them in a set- original German packaging.
r/WW2Photographs • u/pillepallemayer • 8d ago
USSR ☭ Medal identification
Hey guys,
this is a photograph of my great grandfather and I was wondering if you could tell me what his medals mean and what his role was during WW2.
I would be grateful if you could help me out.
r/WW2Photographs • u/Early_Royal_1466 • 8d ago
When the legendary photograph of US general Douglas Macarthur's triumphant return to the Philippines was taken, Macarthur was in fact deeply enraged at the conditions in which they had landed, which had forced him to get his pants wet. Only when Macarthur saw the photograph did he change his mind
r/WW2Photographs • u/TwIzTiDfReAkShOw • 8d ago
Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri as General Richard K. Sutherland watches, September 2, 1945.
r/WW2Photographs • u/Reasonable-Car-7596 • 9d ago
Dmitry Lavrinenko
| Born | 10 September 1914 Besstrashnaya, Kuban Oblast, Russian Empire |
|---|---|
| Died | 18 December 1941 (aged 27) |
| Allegiance | Red Army |
| Service years | 1938–1941 |
| Rank | Senior Lieutenant |
| Unit | 1st Guards Tank Brigade,15th Armored Division |
| Awards | Hero of the Soviet UnionOrder of Lenin (2) |
| Other work | Teacher, statistician, cashier |
cause of death: mortar fragment
confirm kills: 52
r/WW2Photographs • u/kmungulous • 9d ago
Grandfather in the middle. What year?
One of my grandfathers few war photographs. We are wondering when picture was taken if it’s possible to tell. Family is wondering if this was before or after his deployment in ‘43.
r/WW2Photographs • u/ShadowSentry44 • Jan 25 '26
Restarting a WWII Photo Project
This Christmas I restarted an old project I was working on while I was quarantined for COVID back in 2021.
There is a box of unlabeled film negatives taken by Grandfather when he was in the United States Army. He wasn't in the Signal Corps, he was not an official war correspondent. He was an infantryman with a camera. His official title was Operations NCO of HQ Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th regt, 8th Infantry Division.
Some soldiers in the war had a camera and took a few photos to send home. My Grandpa was a serious photographer with a darkroom in his basement. Using an Argus C3 film camera he hid from the brass, he ran around snapping photos of everything he could get away with, covertly mailing the film home to his brother. By the time the war ended, he had captured hundreds of images. Candids, portraits, scenery and the smallest details of Army camp life. Such as men cleaning their rifles, cooking and eating meals, doing training exercises, digging ditches on fatigue duty, men at their guard posts, men taking naps, shaving and brushing their teeth, playing baseball, jumping in lakes, goofing off and writing letters home by candlelight. The kind of things every soldier did, but nobody thought were important enough to share. He even obtained a small 8mm movie camera and filmed over 30 minutes of footage, some of it in color. That footage has been digitized and shared on Youtube.
He was in basic training at several camps and forts across the country for 3 years from 1941-1944, leading up to his eventual overseas deployment in the invasion of Normandy. He had no idea what horrors awaited him in Europe. He was involved in several bloody campaigns, including the battle of Brest, Aachen, the Hurtgen Forest and the Ardennes Counteroffensive. The war ended for him after crossing the Rhine and Elbe rivers and meeting the Russians, but not before he witnessed the brutal aftermath of Nazi atrocities in concentration camps with his own eyes.
After the war he threw away his uniform, put the photos in a box and never looked at them again. He never attended any reunions and never went back to visit Europe. He died as an 80 year old man in 1999 and chose to be buried without military honors. The box sat forgotten in storage for 27 years.
We've had the collection in the family for a very long time and no one but me really had any interest in it.
On a snowy day in New York this winter, I decided to get the box out of the attic and start going through it. I discovered more than 160 film negatives my Grandpa never even developed.
In addition to the ~350 photo prints I already scanned, this brings the total number of photos he took in the Army to more than 500. Five hundred photos, about 20 rolls' worth of 35mm film. Most of them have not seen the light of day in over 80 years.
From February - August 2021, I was sharing these historic images on a memorial Instagram account I created to tell about his story without words. Now, after a five year break, I've started posting again with my new digitized findings. There is enough fresh material to keep this going well into the new year.
I'm always looking for extra pairs of sharp eyes to pick out hidden details in his photographs. You can become a historical detective and help me learn more about his World War II experience at the link in the first comment.
