Amazing Colour Photos of WWII

Life on the front lines: Extremely rare colour photos of U.S. troops before and after D-Day show World War II in brand new light

Did You Know...

Did you know that Winston Churchill wanted to go across the English Channel with his troops on D-Day, but wasn't allowed? His commanders refused to let him participate in the invasion, as he was far too important to the British war effort to be put in harm's way.

70th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor Attack

On December 7th, 1941, a date US President Roosevelt said would "live in infamy", Japan bombed the American naval base Pearl Harbor. The BBC has a fine article on the attack: BBC History - Pearl Harbor: A Rude Awakening.

The Blitz

A great article by the BBC on the Blitz:

BBC News – Did the Blitz really unify Britain?

The Bouncing Bombs

       In 1943, British aircraft designer Barnes Wallis came up with a revolutionary way of breaching German dams. He designed a cylindrical bomb that skipped across the water, over submerged torpedo nets, then exploded at a certain depth against the dam. In order to achieve all of this, the bomb needed to be "spun backwards at 500 rpm before being dropped from low altitude" (About.com – Dambuster Raids).
       The Royal Air Force formed 617 Squadron for the task, which was named Operation Chastise. Three large dams in the Ruhr (an important German industrial area) were to be blown up. The squadron trained rigorously with specially modified Lancaster bombers for the mission, as the utmost precision was necessary for success. The video above shows some of their training.

       On the night of May 16 and 17, the Möhne dam became the first victim of Wallis's ingenious bomb. The photo above shows the dam the day after the attack. Later that night, the Eder dam was also breached. Their success came at the cost of 8 aircraft and 56 casualties. 33 members of the Squadron were decorated for their valour, and the Squadron still flies today, with modern jets.
       To learn more about Operation Chastise and the bouncing bombs, visit the links in the post above, or find yourself a copy of The Canadians at War 1939/45 by Readers Digest, which has a fascinating chapter dedicated to the mission.

Did you know...

Did you know that the battle of Coral Sea, fought May 4–8, 1942, was the first battle fought between two enemy naval fleets that were never in sight of each other?

Did you know...

Did you know that on July 20th, 1944, German officers almost succeeded in killing Hitler with a bomb? This photo from the German Federal Archive shows the damaged room soon after the explosion. Tom Cruise starred in the 2008 film Valkyrie based on this plot to kill Hitler.

Adolf Hitler, the Artist?

     Adolf Hitler is universally known as an evil, racist, and eccentric mass-murderer, but before he was a dictator or even a soldier, he was an artist. Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau, Austria. As a child he wanted to be an artist, even though his father wanted him to be a civil servant like him. When he was sixteen, two and a half years after his father died, Hitler left high school and spent his time drawing and reading. In 1907 he went to Vienna, the capital of Austria-Hungary, wanting to be an art student, but failed the entrance exam to the Academy of Fine Arts twice! He lived in Vienna and considered himself an artist, occasionally selling drawings and paintings. In 1914, World War One began and Hitler joined the army. After Germany’s surrender, he joined the Nazi party and gave up painting. In 2009 a set of paintings and sketches by Hitler sold for the equivalent of almost $177,000 Canadian. Perhaps if Hitler had been let into the Academy of Fine Arts and continued in his career as an artist, Europe would not have been ravaged by the Second World War and Holocaust.

Catalogue of Hitler's Paintings and Drawings

The Secret Diary

The SAS (Special Air Service), a British special forces unit, has revealed a unique diary of the unit's WWII operations! To learn more about this fascinating story, see this article:

BBC News - The SAS secret hidden since WWII

The blog about history's greatest war

The World War Two Blog includes links to WWII websites, recommendations on WWII books, and original articles. This ad-free blog is a great place to start experiencing WWII online. Enjoy!