Picture of the Day

[radiosmersh]

Lieutenant colonel Hatsuo Tsukamoto leads the attack of 5th unit of the Japanese marines near Kokoda in New Guinea, 1942.

[radiosmersh]

Destroyed WW1 era MkV* tanks near the Lustgarten park, Berlin, June 1945.

[Khaine]

This vehicles was standard Sd.Kfz.6 mounted with an armored superstructure at the rear,housing captured Soviet 76.2mm M1936 field gun. The gun was designated by the Germans as76.2mm FK 36(r) / 76.2mm FK 295(r) / 76.2mm Pak 36(r). Conversion took place in 1941 and 9 vehicles designated as 7.62cm Pak 36(r) auf 5t Zugkraftwagen "Diana" were made.From January to February of 1942, all were issued to 605th Panzerjaegerabteilung serving in North Africa.

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/762cm-fk-296r-auf-5t-zugkraftwagen-sdkfz6.htm

[Ivancic1941]

From Russia to Africa?!!!

[Torenico]

[Oberst]

From Russia to Africa?!!!

Soviet 76.2 mm Divisional guns, like the ZiS3 and its predessors were captured in large number by the germans on the early eastern front. Early marder series vehicles were all equiped with those guns. This is also the case with the African theater Marder III we have ingame.

[Born2Kill 007]

An American soldier during the Battle of the Bulge, just back from the front lines near the town of Murrigen, January 1, 1945

[Hjaldrgud]

28th of May. 75 years since the reconquering of Narvik today. Norwegian, British, French and Polish forces pushed the Germans back to the Swedish border, before retreating on the 4th - 8th of June to try to defend the already shattered frontline in France. The rest of the Norwegian army surrendered soon after on the 10th of June.


Unfair comparison between a Krag Jørgensen and a FN Minimi. The bandolier is supposedly Swedish, but I'm not sure. Perhaps some of you know better.


A tad too young Kaptein.


Norwegian Ehrhardt 7.5 cm Model 1901 artillery North of Narvik


Members of the Polish Independent Highland Brigade at Narvik.


Norwegian Mitraljøse M/29 (M1917 Browning) keeping a keen watch on the sky.


Group of tired Norwegian soldiers on the Narvik front.


German Gebirgsjägers in the mountains at Narvik.


Norwegian soldiers back in Narvik on the 28th of May after 50 days in snowy mountains. The LMG is a Madsen Maskingevær


Gebirgsjäger in 1942 with the Narvikschild awarded to German forces who fought at Narvik

[Born2Kill 007]

Two German officers partake in a drunken drinking game in a bar in Norway in July 1942 - one wields a mallet in an apparent joke

Halt! Hammerzeit!

[Nilsson]

...


Unfair comparison between a Krag Jørgensen and a FN Minimi. The bandolier is supposedly Swedish, but I'm not sure. Perhaps some of you know better.

...

Sure looks Swedish. I've got one myself.

[Born2Kill 007]

A U.S. Marine Corps Stinson OY-1 Sentinel observation plane flies low over Naha, capital of Okinawa, ca. May 1945. On this flight, the tiny ship drew small arms and antiaircraft fire from the city which was in Japanese control at the time.

Time for a story from the other side:

Miyagi Kikuko was a 16 year old schoolgirl in the High School on Okinawa. Three days before the US invaded they held their graduation ceremony and all the 15 to 19 year old girls formally joined the Lily Student Corps. The boys joined the Blood and Iron Student Corps.

The following day the building was blasted apart by the US bombardment, but by then they were underground, preparing to assist in the military hospital, located, like most of the Japanese positions, in caves. Very soon after the invasion the casualties began to come in, and within days there were too many to cope with:

In no time at all, wounded soldiers were being carried into the caves in large numbers. They petrified us all. Some didn’t have faces, some didn’t have limbs. Young men in their twenties and thirties screaming like babies. Thousands of them.

At first, one of my friends saw a man with his toes missing and swooned. She actually sank to her knees, but soldiers and medics began screaming at her, “You idiot! You think you can act like that on the battlefield?”

Every day, we were yelled at: “Fools! Idiots! Dummies!” We were so naive and unrealistic. We had expected that somewhere far in the rear, we’d raise the red cross and then wrap men with bandages, rub on medicine, and give them shots as we had been trained. In a tender voice we’d tell the wounded, “Don’t give up, please.”

Now, they were being carried in one after another until the dugouts and caves were filled to overflowing, and still they came pouring in. Soon we were laying them out in empty fields, then on cultivated land. Some hemorrhaged to death and others were hit again out there by showers of bombs. So many died so quickly.

Those who had gotten into the caves weren’t so lucky either. Their turn to have their dressings changed came only once every week or two. So pus would squirt in our faces, and they’d be infested with maggots. Removing those was our job. We didn’t even have enough time to remove them one by one. Gas gangrene, tetanus, and brain fever were common.

Those with brain fever were no longer human beings. They’d tear their clothes off because of their pain, tear off their dressings. They were tied to the pillars, their hands behind their backs, and treatment stopped. At first, we were so scared watching them suffering and writhing that we wept. Soon we stopped. We were kept running from morning to night.

“Do this! Do that!” Yet, as underclassmen we had fewer wounded soldiers to take care of. The senior girls slept standing up. “Miss Student, I have to piss,” they’d cry. Taking care of their excrement was our work. Senior students were assigned to the operating rooms. There, hands and legs were chopped off without anesthesia. They used a saw. Holding down their limbs was a student job.

Outside was a rain of bullets from morning to night. In the evening, it quieted down a little. It was then that we carried out limbs and corpses. There were so many shell craters — it sounds funny to say it, but we considered that fortunate: holes already dug for us. “One, two, three!” we’d chant, and all together we’d heave the dead body into a hole, before crawling back to the cave. There was no time for sobbing or lamentation.

In that hail of bullets, we also went outside to get food rations and water. Two of us carried a wooden half-bushel barrel to the well. When a shell fell, we’d throw ourselves into the mud, but always supporting the barrel because the water was everybody’s water of life. Our rice balls shrank until they were the size of Ping-Pong balls. The only way to endure was to guzzle water. There was no extra water, not even to wash our faces, which were caked in mud.

We were ordered to engage in “nursing,” but in reality, we did odd jobs. We were in the cave for sixty days, until we withdrew to Ihara. Twelve people in our group – two teachers and ten students – perished. Some were buried alive, some had their legs blown off, five died from gas .

from: http://ww2today.com/3-april-1945-okinawa-grim-reality-in-japanese-underground-hospital
originally from: Haruko Taya Cook(ed): Japan at War: An Oral History.

[Slayer]

Five died from gas? Did the US use gas after all? Or was it friendly fire?

[Born2Kill 007]

Not sure, best I could find over google about it is this: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/14633/did-allied-forces-use-chemical-weapons-in-okinawa-during-world-war-ii


Allied aircraft vapor trails in skies above US soldier unloading a jeep outside a farmhouse in the Ardennes Forest (Battle of the Bulge)

[VonMudra]

Yeah, they're probably referring to chemical smoke and white phosphorus, or even to carbon monoxide/carbon dioxide poisoning.

[Leopardi]

305mm coastal artillery turret in Örö, 27.10.1941.