Photographs

Eighth Route Army soldiers manning a machine gun nest on Futuyu Great Wall, as Japanese forces were expanding their invasion south of the wall into China’s coastal strips during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Photograph taken in Laiyuan, Hebei, China, 1938. The Eight Route Army was theoretically under the banner of …

Hillside sign on the Slieve Liag Cliffs, County Donegal, on the Atlantic coast. The mark was mainly used to alert the Luftwaffe of Irish aerial space during World War II, in order to avoid accidental attacks. As a neutral country in the war years, the Republic of Ireland deployed a …

Japanese civilians listening to Emperor Hirohito’s radio broadcast announcing Japan’s surrender on August 15th, 1945. It was the first known time of a Japanese Emperor directly addressing the common people. The broadcast created a lot of confusion at the time and many people were unsure if Japan actually capitulated. Emperor …

USS Idaho battleship shelling Okinawa sometime in late March 1945. The USS Idaho joined Task Force 54 as the flagship of Bombardment Unit 4 for the invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa. Shelling began on March 25th in preparation for the landings which occured one week later. The battleship …

Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers fly over Japan’s Mount Fuji en route to blitzing Tokyo sometime in 1945. During the war, the US Intelligence Center actually considered the option to dye the snow capped Mount Fuji by dropping black or red paint on it. The plan was part of a psychological …

Mexican Air Force Captain Radames Gaxiola Andrade and members of the maintenance team photographed in front of a US P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft after returning from a combat mission during the Philippines Campaign in 1945. The team was part of Mexico’s 201st Fighter Squadron, which assisted the Allied efforts during …

Soviet soldiers of the 1st Baltic Front during an attack in the Latvian city of Jelgava on August 16th 1944, towards the end of Operation Bagration. The 1st Baltic Front was a major formation of the Red Army during World War II and was involved in multiple important battles, most …

USS Pennsylvania battleship heading towards Lingayen Gulf before landing in Luson, Philippines, in January 1945. Behind USS Pennsylvanya we can see USS Colorado, USS Louisville, USS Portland and USS Columbia in a real show of force by the US Navy. Laid down in October 1913, USS Pennsylvania was not sent …

Camouflaged Tiger I tank number 222 of German Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502, pictured while soldiers are operating work for the snowy weather on the Eastern Front. The Tiger 1, a heavy tank produced between 1942 and 1944, was quite a remarkable design at its time, but it was also expensive …

Albanian guerrilla fighters pose under a sign identifying their hometown of Tirana on November 28th 1944, the end date of the German occupation of the country. Albania was set up as a protectorate state following the Italian invasion of April 1939 and was later occupied by German forces. The fascist …