The War in View #24

A PzKpw III Ausf. J watches a river near the region of Maykop, Russia.

 

Moving tanks by rail is straightforward enough, the difficult part is loading and unloading them from the rail wagons. This Matilda, from the 7th Royal Tank Regiment and named ‘Grimsby’, has come to grief during this process. The idea was that the driver would line up the tank with the two ramps then turn on the spot and drive down them. However if he was out of place, gravity would enter the picture, as it has here. Recovering the 25-ton Matilda was sure to be a challenge.

 

An MG42 machine gun jury-rigged to the barrel of a StuG to act as an improvised coaxial gun.

 

US troops pose on an M8 Greyhound armored car with tire chains near Capas, Philippines, early 1945.

Ferdinand "Elefant" Panzerjäger Tiger (P) Sd. Kfz. 184.

PzKpfw V Panther Ausf. D tactical number 445 abandoned at the train station in Kursk city, August 1943.

PzKpfw III, probably in Italy.

German railroad steam engine on a German Army transport trailer being towed by an M3 medium tank, Völklingen, 1946.

Two crew members with a PzKpfw V Panther during review.

"Kamikaze," watercolor by combat artist Dwight Shepler, depicts an unsuccessful suicide attack by a Japanese "Zero" fighter on the aircraft carrier Hornet (CM 12) on 18 March 1945. Hornet was operating at the time as part of Task Force 58, launching strikes against the Japanese home island of Kyushu. These attacks were designed to reduce the number of Japanese aircraft that would be available for kamikaze operations against the US fleet during the invasion of Okinawa.

An O class submarine, possibly HMS Otway, leaving the depot ship HMS Forth. Original color photograph taken in Holy Loch, Scotland, 1942.

An excellent starboard-quarter shot of ill-fated HMS Glorious. Originally launched during World War I as an extremely light battlecruiser (32 knts, 2 x twin 15" turrets) she saw some light action during that war (second Battle of Heligoland Bight). Converted to an aircraft carrier during the 1920's.

The battleship HMS King George V in the Atlantic, January 1941.

The heavy cruiser HMS London, the only County class to be reconstructed with a new superstructure, with the armored carrier HMS Victorious, September 1941.

The Revenge-class battleship HMS Royal Oak departing Malta, 1937. Royal Oak was the only R class battleship to be refitted with additional deck armor during the 1930s.

Lighters pull alongside the Queen Elizabeth to unload U.S. troops in England.

Landing craft assembled along the quayside at Southampton, waiting for D-Day, June 1944.

Dummy landing craft used as decoys in south-eastern harbors in the period before D-Day

LSI(S) Prince Baudouin in port, circa 1944. The ship is launching three LCA landing craft, filled with American troops, during amphibious exercises. Included are LCA-521, LCA-554 and LCA-670.

British landing craft, LCA 1825, as seen at Arromanches in 1974.

LCAs leave HMS Rocksand for the island of Nancowry in the British occupation of the Nicobar Islands, October 1945. Landing Ship, Infantry (LSI) was a British term for a type of ship used to transport infantry in amphibious warfare during the Second World War.

A Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) Mk. 8 in British service as LCT(A) 2008 at Normandy. Note the missing bow ramp.

British wartime Merchant Marine poster: "On the Atlantic Front".

British wartime poster: "Idle Words Can Sink Ships".

The British ammunition ship Neptunia explodes at her wharf at Port Darwin. A second ammunition ship, Zealandia, is seen at right, with a floating dry dock in the middle distance.

Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Escorts and merchant ships at Hvalfjord before the sailing of Convoy PQ 17. Behind the destroyer Icarus is the Russian tanker Azerbaijan.

HMS Eridge, July 1941. 

HMS York before the war.

A boarding party from the Italian torpedo boat Sirio inspects the wreckage of HMS York at Suda bay, June 1942.

Captain Donald G. F. Macintyre.

Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Admiral of the Fleet.

Admiral of the Fleet Lord Louis Mountbatten.

After his days commanding Combined Operations and promoted to admiral, Lord Louis Mountbatten became supreme allied commander Southeast Asia Command.

Lord Louis Mountbatten, director of Combined Operations, with 6 Commando prior to the abortive Adour estuary raid in 1942.

Admiral Sir Bertram H. Ramsay.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir James F. Somerville.

HMS Howe, Flagship of the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, passing through the Suez Canal on 14 July 1944 on her way to join the British Pacific Fleet. Commissioned in June 1942, she was the last of the five King George V-class battleships to be completed, by which time one of them, HMS Prince of Wales, had been sunk by the Japanese.

British submarine at sea.

Sailors onboard HM Submarine Tribune, 1942.

Commanding officer onboard HM Submarine Tribune, 1942.

Sailor on the HMS King George, 1942.

A Royal Navy gunner cradles a three-inch anti-aircraft shell on the quarter deck of the destroyer, one of the ships of Escort Group B7, in Londonderry in November 1943. The turret behind houses a QF 4.7-inch gun, the standard armament on most British destroyers.

Crew members entertain themselves with a card game while aboard a T-class submarine, which was built for long oceanic voyages. As a result, crews were faced with extended periods of time in cramped conditions and, unlike the German U-boats, there were no large convoys to attack with targets few and far between. The names of these five men were not recorded.

HMS Howe firing her 14-inch guns near Scapa Flow, likely around 25 September to 5 October 1942.

HMS Howe: “The brilliant flash from the guns which precedes the cordite smoke lasts only for a fraction of a second”.

"The Surrendered Italian Fleet with HMS King George V and Howe", painting by Rowland Langmaid, 1943.

Battleship in Suez Canal, HMS Howe by Charles Pears.

Suez Transit by Wayne Scarpaci. Depicts the King George V class Battleship, HMS Howe, passaging through the Suez canal in 1944.

Escorts and merchant ships before the sailing of the ill-fated Convoy PQ-17, 1942.

Japanese Navy POWs from the battle of Midway arrive at Pearl Harbor.

Japanese Surrender on board the USS Missouri.

Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the Japanese Government, on board the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945 as Lt. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, U.S. Army, watches from the opposite side of the table.

Oran harbor. In Operation Reservist, the British cutters Walney and Hartland carried hundreds of American soldiers into the teeth of French defenses before dawn on November 8, 1942. The port entrance is visible in the upper center of this photograph, taken six months later.

Normandy Invasion.

American military personnel pay their respects beside the mass grave of 15 officers and others killed in the bombing attack at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.

HMS Howe.

HMS Howe firing her starboard 5.9 guns, as seen from the inward deck of HMS King George V in Northern waters.

HMS Howe, July 1943, off Algiers.

Swimmers from a local swimming club gather on a jetty to watch the passage of HMS Howe through the Suez Canal. Many of the battleship’s crew are on deck.

On board HMS Howe, flagship of Admiral Bruce Fraser, C in C British Pacific Fleet, when she was in New Zealand waters and during her visit to Auckland, January 1945. Destroyer escort seen from the bridge of the Howe.

Captain H. W. U. McCall, DSO, RN, with the Howe’s dog mascot Guinness.

HMS Howe with a bone in her teeth.

The sisters HMS King George V and HMS Howe at Port-of-Algiers, 24 July 1943. The battleships were part of a reinforcement of Allied forces in the Mediterranean for the invasion of Sicily.

HMS Howe in Auckland, 1945.

Some of the ship's company joining HMS Howe, August 1942.

HMS Howe, August 1942. The Lord Provost of Edinburgh, speaking to the ship’s company.

HMS Howe Joins the Fleet, Glasgow, Scotland, July 1942. Thousands of people gather on the banks of the Clyde to see the recently constructed British battleship HMS Howe, towed out by tugs to join the Fleet.

With HMS Howe, August 1942, on board the battleship HMS Howe. The fitting mascot for the great battleship is “Judy”, a thoroughbred bulldog.

An imposing shot of Howe from the waterline, showing off her secondaries.

HMS Howe.

HMS Howe.

HMS Howe.

HMS Howe enters the dock for her finishing touches before taking her place with the Fleet. 2 July 1942.

HMS Howe underway at sea, date unknown.

King George V class battleship HMS Howe during trials in August 1942.

Note Howe's AAA suite including 8-barreled pom-poms.

Royal Marines manned and supplied a quarter of the armament of the ships in which they served. Here two of the Marine detachment in the battleship Howe are working on a high-angle 5.25-inch gun, August 1942. Behind the guns is the crane for recovering the reconnaissance aircraft carried in the ship. She had eight such mounts, the equivalent of a Dido-class light cruiser, and was capable of hitting up to 36,000 ft altitude in AAA mode.

Looking from the foc’sle towards the six forward 14 inch guns of HMS Howe, with the guns at maximum elevation and a group of sailors lined up in front of them.

Workmen doing the same, HMS Howe (32).

Royal Marines fitting tampions to the guns of turret A or X aboard HMS Howe.

Turret A or X aboard HMS Howe.

Six of the ten 14-in guns of HMS Howe pointing to port as seen from a small boat alongside the battleship.

The King George V-class battleship HMS Howe (32) conducting full power trials at Scapa Flow with a bone in her teeth on 29 August 1942. The last “KGV” and the final British dreadnought built that would see combat.

A Supermarine Walrus from HMS Howe.

HMS Howe steaming at full speed during trials, August 1942.

Admiral of the Fleet Alfred Dudley Pickman Rogers Pound, Royal Navy, First Sea Lord, 1939-43. Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alfred Dudley Pickman Rogers Pound, GCB, OM, GCVO (29 August 1877 – 21 October 1943) was a British senior officer of the Royal Navy. He served in the First World War as a battleship commander, taking part in the Battle of Jutland with notable success, contributing to the sinking of the German cruiser Wiesbaden. He served as First Sea Lord, the professional head of the Royal Navy, for the first four years of the Second World War. In that role his greatest achievement was his successful campaign against the German U-boats and the winning of the Battle of the Atlantic but his judgment has been questioned over the failed Norwegian Campaign in 1940, and his dismissal of Admiral Dudley North in 1940. His order in July 1942 to disperse Convoy PQ 17 and withdraw its covering forces, to counter a threat from heavy German surface ships, led to its destruction by submarines and aircraft. His health failed in 1943 and he resigned, dying shortly thereafter. 

Sir Alfred Dudley Pickman Rogers Pound, British Admiral of the Fleet, First Sea Lord, head of the Royal Navy, June 1939–1943.

HMS Repulse leading other Royal Navy capital ships during maneuvers, circa the later 1920s. The next ship astern is HMS Renown. Pound commanded the Repulse in the early 1920s.

The First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound on the bridge of SS Queen Mary en route to the USA with Winston Churchill on board. This is one of the last pictures taken of Sir Dudley before his death early on 21 October 1943 aged 66. He died seventeen days after his resignation as First Sea Lord after being taken ill whilst with Mr. Churchill at the Quebec meetings. On return to England he was taken to the Royal Masonic Hospital. London where he stayed until his death.

Winston Churchill (second from right) with his scientific advisor Lord Cherwell (extreme left), Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, watching a display of anti-aircraft gunnery, June 1941.

The Prime Minister with Admiral Sir Dudley Pound and Captain Leach on the quarterdeck of HMS Prince of Wales, during the Atlantic Conference, 10 August 1941.

Combined Chiefs of Staff in Quebec – August 23, 1943. Seated around the table from left foreground: vice Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten, Sir Dudley Pound, Sir Alan Brooke, Sir Charles Portal, Sir John Dill, Lt. Gen. Sir Hastings L. Ismay, Brigadier Harold Redman, Comdr. R.D. Coleridge, Brig. Gen. John R. Deane, General Arnold, General Marshall, Admiral William D. Leahy, Admiral King, and Capt. F.B. Royal.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound and the Prime Minister on the deck of the SS Queen Mary.

The First Sea Lord ,Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, GCB, GCVO (centre) with (right) The Commander in Chief Western Approaches, Admiral Sir Percy Noble, KCB, CVO, and (left) Captain J A McCoy DSO, RN during a visit to Royal Navy warships involved in the Battle of the Atlantic.

The funeral cortege of the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound about to move off from Horse Guards Parade, London, showing left to right: General Sir Alan Brooke, Admiral Stark, Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt, Earl of Cork and Orrery, Sir Charles Little, and Sir Sidney Freemantle.

Prince of Wales coming alongside a quay in Singapore harbor on 2 December 1941.

Italian aircraft attack the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal in the Mediterranean.

HMS Courageous stalked and killed off the coast of Ireland, September 1939.

HMS Indomitable survives numerous near misses during an attack on Pedestal Convoy, August 1942.