Lieutenant Albert Sachs, South African Air Force, seconded to No. 92 Squadron RAF, sitting on his Supermarine Spitfire Mark VIII at Canne, Italy.
On 30 November 1943, Sachs recorded in his Sortie Report:
'I was flying Yellow 3. At 0935 I saw 10+ 109s and 190s which we had been warned of by Control, bombing along the secondary road parallel with the Sangro River towards the River mouth.
...I dived on them and as I approached they turned and began straffing the road towards the mountains. I closed in on a 190 and fired several bursts from quarter astern and astern from 250 – 50 yds. He dived N.W. along the side of the mountain and after seeing strikes on the cockpit I saw the A/C half roll and it crashed in the vicinity of H.1898.
I then broke slightly up as a Warhawk was on the 190s No 2s tail. The Warhawk fired several shots none of which hit the E/A. He then broke up and I closed in on the 190 and fired a burst at quarter astern from 100 yds. getting strikes on the wing roots, as I was firing the Warhawk flew through my sights so I broke away and then lost sight of the 190. I then rejoined the Patrol.
I claim One F.W 190 destroyed. One F.W 190 damaged.'
On 5 December 1943, Sachs scored the 99th and 100th victories for his Squadron when he shot down two Focke Wulf Fw 190s near Pescara, before colliding with a third Fw 190 and being forced to bale out.
The Officer Record Brief entry for 92 Squadron provides the following, detailed insight into this engagement:
‘Lt. Sachs destroyed two FW 190s and probably destroyed another. His story is an epic. He positioned himself behind the twelve-plus fighter-bombers while two others attacked the fighter cover. After destroying an FW 190 with a one-second burst, Lt. Sachs saw another on the tail of a Spitfire, so he turned into it, firing a 30-degree deflection shot, then fired again from point-blank range astern.
The aircraft blew up, and portions hit Sachs’ windscreen, smashing it, while another large piece struck his starboard wing.
FW 190s were then diving on him from both sides and one shell exploded on his tail plane, blowing off his starboard elevator. He turned toward another FW 190 which as attacking him at point-blank range on his port side, and felt a jar as he collided with it. The enemy aircraft dived away out of control minus its fin and rudder.
The attack continued and finally, after his elevator and aileron control were useless, Lt. Sachs was forced to bail out. He landed safely in his own lines within 60 yards of the wreckage of his Spitfire.’
After a period as a flying instructor in the United Kingdom, Sachs returned to Italy to command No. 93 Squadron RAF from September 1944 to February 1945.
Photographer: Flying Officer B. Bridge B, Royal Air Force official photographer
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Wing Commander Wilfred George Gerald Duncan-Smith, No. 244 Wing RAF, with "Bonzo", a bulldog mascot of one of the squadrons of the Wing, standing by his personal communications aircraft, a commandeered Italian Saiman 202, at Tortorella, Italy, 1943.
Born in Madras, India, on 28 May 1914, Duncan Smith was educated in Scotland, before returning to India in 1933 to become a coffee and tea planter. He returned to the UK three years later however, working first as a mechanical en...
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Local fisherman Tom Swaffield takes Private First Class George W. Burnett (left, of Route 5, Spartanburg, South Carolina) and Private First Class Harris L. Whitwell (left, of Main Street, Rogersville, Tennessee) out in a rowing boat to see his lobster pots. Burton Bradstock, Dorset, England, 1944.
In the lead-up to the D-Day Landings in Normandy, France, in June 1944, coastal port towns throughout Dorset and Hampshire became a hive of military activity.
Full-scale battle reh...earsals were carried out, tactics were planned, while engineers devised ingenious ways in order to make the beach landings as effective as possible.
Tens of thousands of soldiers were stationed in the area, all being supplied and supported by civilian communities working under the outmost secrecy.
A notable exception was the 225 residents of the village of Tyneham, who were given just a month's notice to leave their homes by 19 December 1943 in the 'national interest'.
A letter explained to residents that a special office would be set up in Wareham to answer any questions, and that: "The Government appreciate that this is no small sacrifice which you are asked to make, but they are sure that you will give this further help towards winning the war with a good heart."
Many residents expected to be able to return home after the war, while others had built new homes and lives in Wareham. A public enquiry in 1948 finalised the matter, with a compulsory purchase order being issued for the land to remain under permanent ownership of the Ministry of Defence.
Today, over 70 years later, Tyneham remains an uninhabited ghost town, a curious village falling into decay, frozen in time.
Photographer: Ministry of Information Photo Division
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Great to see some of my work featured in the Daily Mail today for Anzac Day!
ANZAC is the acronym for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, a term formed during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 where both countries served closely alongside one another. A tradition we still continue.
Although it's not immediately obvious in the text, for those that follow my posts here, you'll recognise the recent Capt. Ballantyne of the Long Range Desert Group, representing my Kiwi countrymen. (His 'NZ' badge has been cropped in this version)
In the early hours of 25 April 1915, Australian and New Zealand soldiers, commonly known as Anzacs, landed at what is now called Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula, in present-day Turkey.
For the vast majority of the 16,000 Australians and New Zealanders who landed on that first day, this was their first experience of combat. By that evening, 2,000 of them had been killed or wounded.
The Gallipoli campaign was a military failure. The most successful operation was the evac...uation in late December, after nine months of holding positions that had barely changed since the first day.
By the time the campaign ended, more than 130,000 men had died; at least 87,000 Ottoman soldiers and 44,000 Allied soldiers. Australia suffered 26,111 casualties, including more than 8,200 fatalities.
However, the traits that were shown there – bravery, ingenuity, endurance and mateship – have become enshrined as defining aspects of the Anzac character.
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."
Lest we forget.
Staff Sergeant Maynard Harrison 'Snuffy" Smith of the 306th Bomb Group, salutes after being awarded the Medal of Honor by the US Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, in front of a B-17 Flying Fortress at Thurleigh Airfield, USAAF Station 111, England, 15 Jul 1943.
Born in Caro, Michigan, Smith was drafted into the US Army in 1942 before volunteering for aerial gunnery training. At the conclusion of his training, he was posted to the US bomber base at Thurleigh, in Bedfordshir...e, England.
At only 5' 4" tall, he earned the nickname 'Snuffy' from the comic strip characters, 'Barney Google and Snuffy Smith', apparently on account of 'his obnoxious and belligerent attitude' - traits that found him frequently in trouble.
His awarding of the Medal of Honour - the United State's highest award for valour - came following action in the skies over Brest, France, on 1 May 1943.
It was his first combat mission, in the position of ball turret gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress, attacking U-Boat pens at Saint-Nazaire in Loire-Atlantique, France.
On the homeward leg, their aircraft was attacked by German fighter aircraft, causing serious damage, erupting fuels tanks which in turn resulted in a massive fire breaking out in the centre fuselage of the aircraft.
Three crew members bailed out, as the fire threatened the integrity of the aircraft. With power lost to his ball turret, and their communications gone, Smith scrambled back up into the fuselage and attended to badly injured crew - all the while manning the two .50 calibre waist machine guns, holding enemy fighters at bay.
For nearly 90 minutes, Smith alternated between shooting at the attacking fighters, tending to his wounded crew members and fighting the fire. To starve the fire of fuel, he threw burning debris and exploding ammunition through the large holes that the fire had melted in the fuselage. After the fire extinguishers were exhausted, Smith finally managed to put the fire out, in part by urinating on it.
The B-17 limped back across the English Channel and made a forced landing at the nearest airfield, where it broke in two as it touched down. The fuselage metal had melted in sections due to the heat of the fire, and the aircraft had been struck by more than 3,500 bullets and anti-aircraft shrapnel.
Sadly, the three aircrew who bailed out were never located and were presumed lost at sea. However, Smith's actions saved the remaining six members of the crew.
Stimson, who was in Britain on a visit, attended Thurleigh Airfield to present Smith with the Medal of Honour personally. He was the first enlisted US Army airman to receive the award.
'Snuffy' Smith survived the war, and died at the age of 72 in May 1984.
Photographer: Planet News
Images courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London, FRE4438
Colours of Yesterday shared their photo.
Following yesterday's post, 100 years ago today - the Red Baron is buried with full military honours, 22 April 1918.
One from the Archives! This was when I had just first begun colourisations. Be interesting to return to some of these early images, and see how I might approach them now.
The funeral and burial of Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen at Bertangles, Somme department in Picardie, on the 22 April 1918.
No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flyin...g Corps' officers and other ranks formed the 'official' party - pallbearers, firing party, motor transport, funeral procession.
2237 Air Mechanic 2nd Class John A R Alexander, No. 3 Sqn AFC
Private Record Collection PR86/133 (extract from personal diary)
".... he was buried that afternoon, Tuesday at 16.30. They obtained a coffin and it was engraved with the following inscription in plate for his coffin – 'Cavalry Captain Baron Von Richthofen aged 25 Killed in Aerial combat Sailley-le-Sec Somme France 21-4-18.'
There were three wreaths one from 5th Div HQ with German colors and the card read to a worthy and valiant foe. Another wreath came from the Royal Air Force and one from our own 3rd Squadron each having the German colors.
We supplied a firing party of 25 men, he was given a full military funeral. Oh we had all the heads here – quite a dozen official reporters and a cinematographer from the War records Dept. Of course it seemed a down right shame that such a fuss should be made over an enemy airmen – no doubt he was brave man they all are, but unless they have proof that Germany treat our good pilots in a like manner I would be one to pass him by like they are known to treat our boys. On the morning of his fall Germany were sending out to the world news of his 80th victim but our men say he always fought fair – we stood to attention as 6 of our pilots carried him out to the car. He was buried at Bertangles a French Village but oh such a dirty forsaken hole."
Dale M Titler (in his book The Day the Red Baron Died, 1970) quotes Oliver C Le-Boutillier, an American airman who was the leader of B Flight, 209 Squadron RAF, on the circumstances of Richthofen’s death and burial: 'The next day several of us got into lorries and went to Bertangles to represent 209 at the funeral. We weren’t able to view the remains. While the services were conducted, we stood outside the cemetery and watched over the tall hedge directly opposite the open grave.’
(Note the Chinese Labour Corps man on the right, behind the hedge.)
Thanks to WW1 Colourised Photos for suggesting the image to be coloured, and for researching the text.
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, Q 10923
100 years ago today - 21 April 1918 - Manfred von Richthofen, better known to the Allied forces as the 'Red Baron', was shot down and killed near Vaux-sur-Somme, France. He was twelve days short of his 26th birthday.
Debate has ranged for the best part of the following century as to who actually shot down the Red Baron.
Credit went initially to a Canadian pilot, Captain Roy Brown, who was engaged in a dogfight with Richthofen at the time, diving after him low over the Somme R...iver.
However, he was also coming under ground fire from the ridge above the river and the popular theory, widely accepted now, is that the fatal shot was fired by Cedric Popkin, an anti-aircraft machine gunner with the Australian Imperial Forces.
Richthofen was able to make a rough but controlled landing in a nearby field along the Bray-Corbie road, but eye witness reports at the time claim he died almost immediately.
Australian stretcher-bearer Sergeant Ted Smout was among the first to reach the downed aircraft and reported that Richthofen's final word was 'kaputt' ('finished'). He later admitted he had to resist the temptation to souvenir the famed pilot's iron cross medal and flying boots.
In 1964, four years before his own death at the age of 77, Popkin admitted to a reporter for the Brisbane Courier-Mail:
"I am fairly certain it was my fire which caused the Baron to crash, but it would be impossible to say definitely that I was responsible ... As to pinpointing without doubt the man who fired the fatal shot, the controversy will never actually be resolved."
Although Smout resisted the temptation, the Australians - soon joined by others - made short work of claiming their own small piece of the historical trophy, cutting sections of the red fabric from Richthofen's Fokker DR1 triplane, and salvaging other mementoes.
Many of these have made their way back to the Australian War Memorial over the decades, which now holds a number of fragments of the aircraft, wood from the propeller, the plane's compass, control column, and Richthofen's left flying boot.
Here, officers of No.3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, examine the Spandau machine guns from the wreckage of Richthofen's now largely destroyed triplane, the remnants visible behind them, at Bertangles the day after his downing.
Photographer: Second Lieutenant Thomas Keith Aitken
Images courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
I am delighted to be able to write that following last month's post on two Indigenous Australian WW1 servicemen, I was able to trace the surviving daughter of one of them and arrange to have a framed colour print of her father presented to her.
Here's a beaming Aunty Lorraine Wilson, 89, with the print of her Ngarrindjeri father, Digger and later prisoner of war, Roland Carter.
Remembering his story, that of fellow Indigenous internee Douglas Grant, and all those who served t...his coming Anzac Day, 25 April.
To read the full story of the theatrical play that will shortly be performed on Carter's life, see the link in the comments below.
Photographer: Jennie Groom; The Advertiser
'Australians arrive at Singapore. Thumbs up from "Digger" Smith as he disembarks.'
Although the details aren't recorded against the image catalogue record, all the clues are right there - on his kit bag!
William Jack Smith, NX 30538, was born in Condobolin, New South Wales, on 20 February 1917.
...Working as a labourer, at the age of 23 he enlisted at Paddington, NSW, on 12 June 1940. After training, he was taken on strength of the 1st Royal Australian Regiment in September before being transferred in November to the 2/15th Field Regiment.
His service record shows a slightly colourful character. In early May 1941, he was punished for disobeying a 'lawful command' by his superior office while stationed at Holsworthy Barracks, in Sydney.
Then, two months later in July, it appears he went absent without leave. Just days before he was due to depart Sydney, he did a repeat performance - 'AWL from 23.59 hrs 26/9/41 to 9.15 hrs 27/9/41', reads his service record. That is, at midnight he hit Sydney perhaps for one last 'good time' before his imminent departure.
These incidents couldn't halt the inevitable, and Smith sailed out of Sydney for Singapore a few days alter, arriving there 5 October 1941.
This photo is presumably taken on that date. In is a poignant moment in time, of a seeming larrikin figure before the horrors of the conflict would befall him and shape his post-war life.
The bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941, and the repeated bombing of northern Australia beginning the following February heralded Japan's entry into the war, as their armed forces moved swiftly down the Malayan Peninsula.
Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942. Smith is recorded the following day as having been taken a Prisoner of War in Malaya.
Red Cross files, recently acquired by the University of Melbourne Archives, show that Smith was interned for most of the subsequent years of the war in a Malayan POW Camp.
The final entry on his Red Cross card is dated 6 September 1945, as Allied forces regain their foothold in the Pacific, advising that he was now safe in Allied Hands in Sumatra.
Smith returned to Australia and was discharged from the army, but in 1961 requested new discharge papers be issued as he had by then changed his name to Francis Ernest Smith.
He was at that time a patient in the Concord Repatriation General Hospital in Sydney, a fact which offers a small but sobering insight into his experiences as a prisoner during the war.
Photographer: Lieutenant Palmer
Images courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Following on the theme of the previous post ...
Port installations burn over the harbour town of Tobruk, Libya, on 24 January 1941 following its capture by British and Australian troops two days earlier.
In the foreground, M11/40 (on the left) and M11/39 (on the right) Italian tanks can be seen, under new 'ownership'. White kangaroo symbols can be seen on the tanks, now the possessions of the 6th Australian Division.
... Photographer: Lieutenant L.B. Davis, No. 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
A soldier of the 9th Australian Division giving a drink of water to a donkey foal in Tobruk during the final months of the city's siege, Libya, 13 August 1941.
When the Italian Army abandoned Tobruk, several donkeys and a mule attached themselves to an Australian camp. One of the donkeys, wounded by a shrapnel, was cared by a medical unit and he got very attached to his benefactors. Many of the animals were killed during enemy raids on Australian positions.
By late 1940, the ...Allied Forces had defeated the Italian 10th Army during Operation Compass, and confined the remnant Italian forces to Beda Fomm. Feeling confident, Allied Forces were withdrawn in support of the Greek and Syrian campaigns on the other side of the Mediterranean, leaving only a skeleton force, short on supplies and equipment, in North Africa as Italian and Germany forces began to be reinforced.
The Australian 9th Division and the British 2nd Armoured Division, minus a brigade group sent to Greece, were left to garrison Cyrenaica. The Allied forces were of the believe that the Germans would not be able to attack until May, by which time the 9th Australian Division would be strengthened, and two more division and supporting troops, particularly artillery and tanks of the 2nd Armoured Division would be ready.
However, German General Erwin Rommel launched Operation Sonnenblume (Sunflower) in February 1941, more than two months earlier than when Allied GHQ in Egypt had anticipated a counter-attack.
Allied forces retreated to the Egyptian border, leaving a garrison comprised primarily of the Australian 9th to hold and defend the important port-town of Tobruk against the Axis forces.
The Siege of Tobruk commenced with Rommel's attack on the city on 10 April, and would last 241 days. Ultimately, the holding of the port city denied Rommel's forces a closer supply-port near the Egyptian border than Benghazi in Libya, some 900 km (560 miles) west of the Egyptian border. The city was finally relived in November 1941, by the Eighth Army that had taken control of Allied forces in the Western Desert from September.
Rommel was so impressed with the enemy he had faced, that had held the city for almost eight months with such tenacity, that he believed them to be an elite fighting force. (In a sense they were - they were Australian! 
) The Germans referred to them as 'desert rats', and the garrison forces took on the term with pride. They were the 'Rats of Tobruk'.
'Australia in the War of 1939–1945' (1967), the Australian Official History, records that the 9th Australian Division casualties from 8 April – 25 October, including two days before the siege started, were 746 killed, 1,996 wounded, 604 prisoners, with 507 Australians captured between 28 March 1941 and the investment of Tobruk and a further 467 taken during the siege itself.
Photographer: Lieutenant Smith, No. 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit (Undefined)
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Renowned American photographer Ansel Adams, one of the great names associated with the promotion and conservation of the US' national parks through his powerful photographs, taken by his friend and fellow photographer J. Malcolm Greany, c. 1950.
For this page, it is not without some irony that Adams' most recognised work was taken in black and white photography!
Born in 1902, Ansel Easton Adams was only four years old when the San Francisco earthquake struck his hometown. ...Although he escaped injury in the initial earthquake, he was flung into a wall in aftershock, breaking his nose. Doctors advised his parents that he would be best to correct the break when he matured. As Adams joked in 1979, "But of course I never did mature, so I still have the nose."
Adams joined the Sierra Club in 1919 and soon became the official photographer for the Club's hikes, producing portfolio books for sale to the members.
In the 1930s, Adams produced a series of his evocative photographs that would eventually be published in book form as, 'Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail.' He sent a copy to Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, who showed it to Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt was so taken with the images that he refused to return the book to Ickes, and took it with him to the White House. Adams would send Ickes a replacement copy.
Within a few years, Adams, Ickes and others were able to convince Roosevelt to ensure the majesty of the area was protected through the establishment of the Kings Canyon National Park. In order that he could experience it exactly as Adams' had captured it, Roosevelt's designation specified that the park be left totally undeveloped and roadless.
While photography had been much maligned by art galleries during the first half of the century, by the 1960s and 70s these attitudes were changing. The Metropolitan Museum of Art held a major retrospective exhibition of Adams' work in 1974.
For much of the last decade of his life, Adams' time was busy spent curating and reprinting negatives from his collection, partly to fulfil the demand by art museums who had by now created departments of photography and were actively acquiring his works.
Adam died in 1984, leaving an incredible legacy in the history of the 20th century photography.
Photographer: J. Malcolm Greany
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill with his daughter Sarah, on a visit to his old regiment, the 4th Queen's Own Hussars, in Egypt, 5 December 1943.
Churchill wears the uniform of a full Colonel of the 4th Queen's Own Hussars beneath the regimental flag with his daughter, and Lieutenant General Stone (left) during his visit.
The regiment was originally a cavalry unit formed in 1685, seeing service in both World War 1 and World War 2 before being amalgamated with the 8th ...King's Royal Irish Hussars, to form the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars in 1958.
Churchill, along with other British Chiefs of Staff, had flown out of Tehran, Iran, three days earlier to Cairo to hold talks with US President Roosevelt and his Chiefs about the cross-channel crossing. These would eventually evolve into the D-Day landings the following year.
Photographer: Sgt. Morniment, No. 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
'Portrait of a Bedouin', Bethany, Jordan, 1950
Bedouin is a broad, descriptive term applied to the nomadic Arab people who have historically inhabited the desert regions spanning east from Iraq, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, and across the deserts of North Africa.
The term derives from the Arabic 'badawī', meaning "desert dweller" and is often contrasted with 'ḥāḍir' - the term given to sedentary people.
...While traditionally the Bedouin have been herders, primarily of goats or camels, increasingly they have given away the nomadic existence for urban living.
Another of the great photographic portraits by Dutch photographer, Willem van de Poll, who travelled through the Middle East in the mid-1950s.
Van de Poll's work is always good when I need clean, blue skies and some variation in colour!
Photographer: Willem van de Poll
Image courtesy of the Nationaal Archief
Captain Bruce Ballantyne, Patrol commander of T Patrol, the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), probably taken in the Western Desert, Libya, 1940-43.*
* With grateful thanks to Brendan O'Carroll, LRDG Historian in New Zealand, who has identified Ballantyne. Some further details of the group, and O'Carroll's past work in locating LRDG vehicles in the desert can be found here:
http://www.thevintagenews.com/…/ww2-time-warp-long-range-d…/
... The original post details, based on the scant details we could 'read' in the image itself are below. We were pretty close, except for a name! 
--------
This is one of a series of official photographs, taken by the No.1 Army Film and Photographic Unit, during WWII that has no additional recorded details. However, there is much that can be gleaned from the image ...
From his cap badge, we know our subject is a New Zealander, and from the three pips on his shoulders, that he holds the rank of captain.
The short sleeves and the image itself suggest it was taken during the North Africa campaign, while the item in his hands appears to be a Bagnold-type sun compass.
Developed by British officer Ralph Bagnold, a veteran of the Royal Engineers during WW1, he served in Egypt in the mid-1920s and was instrumental in developing desert familiarity and survival techniques in the 1930s.
Bagnold was to make the first east-west crossing of the Libyan desert, honing qualities and skills that were to stand British forces in good stead when war broke out a few years later.
Returning to active service, Bagnold formed and served in the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), a reconnaissance and raiding unit of the British Army, in Egypt and Libya during 1940-43. The LRDG made good use of the Bagnold compasses.
From these 'visual clues', it would seem likely that our subject here is a NZ Captain serving in the LRDG in North Africa, possibly Libya, c. 1940-43.
If anyone recognises him - it'd be great to find out more!
Photographer: No. 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
