The human face of war

[Finkeren]

Flipping through a folder of WW2 photos on my hard drive, I happened upon one of my favorite photos from the GPW:

 

 

Probably taken as part of a larger series of photos intended for propaganda purposes, this one just really speaks to me. What is this person other than a teenage girl posing for the camera in a silly way that so many girls her age would? If not for the war, she might be attending college, going to parties and meeting her first true love. Instead her job involves lying still in freezing mud and at any time being ready to pull the trigger on an unaware and defenseless human being. I'm not exactly sure, who she is, but I suspect it might be Roza Shanina (54 kills), who was a favorite of the Soviet press, not least because of her looks. She was killed in 1945 in East Prussia while trying to shield a wounded artillery officer, when a German shell disemboweled her, she was 20 years old.

 

Please post your own favorite picture showing soldiers in war as human beings.

 

 

Edited October 27, 2016 by Finkeren

[J2_Trupobaw]

Duh

 

Edited October 27, 2016 by Trupobaw

[Finkeren]

Duh

 

 

Me thinks you might have (intentionally) misunderstood the point about the human face of war

 

Adorable picture though.

Edited October 27, 2016 by Finkeren

[Aap]

 

The name of the kitten in this picture is Nina. There are several pictures of Estonian soldiers with the same cat from June 1944, Narva front.

[unreasonable]

Lots more "nazi cat" pictures here! 

 

http://omniomon.blogspot.com/2014/04/glorious-ss-and-wehrmahct-army-sama.html

[Finkeren]

Lots more "nazi cat" pictures here! 

 

http://omniomon.blogspot.com/2014/04/glorious-ss-and-wehrmahct-army-sama.html

 

Ehm... Yeah, and a pretty gross nazi-site as well. Not really kosher if you ask me 

[Feathered_IV]

This is the one that will always stay with me. 

Flying Officer F.D. Thomas between sorties at Luqa, Malta during the height of the Blitz.  Awarded cap and colours playing rugby and cricket for his school.  He was killed in 1943. 

 

It's an incredible snapshot in time.  As a composition for a painting by an old master, it would have served itself well.  The little details like the sunlight streaming through the bullet and shrapnel holes in the canvas.  The Maltese cross painted on the pilot's mae wests.  The Flight Sergeant on the right, surreptitiously looking at his watch...

[Mastermariner]

Often art says it best

 

 

B.Okorokov. The first day of peace

[=362nd_FS=RoflSeal]

[unreasonable]

Ehm... Yeah, and a pretty gross nazi-site as well. Not really kosher if you ask me 

 

Indeed - but that is what you find when you look for the cat. Even nazis like cats, it seems.

[Uufflakke]

First aid to the foe.

 

 

 

[Crump]

[707shap_Srbin]

 

D. I. Kutinen, baker in besiedged Leningrad. He died from starvation on 3 Febr. 1942, directly at his work, at the age of 59.

He died, but didnt took even a gramm of bread he baked, wich was purposed to feed over million of starvating people in Leningrad.

 

We must remember all men and women, who fought the enemy to the last stand, even not at the front.

[707shap_Srbin]

Liliya Litvyak (4 destroyed + 3 shared destroyed + 1 balloon) and Ekaterina Budanova (1 destroyed + 2 shared destroyed)

 

[Finkeren]

Liliya Litvyak (4 destroyed + 3 shared destroyed + 1 balloon) and Ekaterina Budanova (1 destroyed + 2 shared destroyed)

 

14695580_10207500005555134_6937522037847212931_n.jpg14731134_10207500005595135_1044647014591321807_n.jpg

 

Those sound like very conservative estimates (Ekatarina Polunina?) The figure most often quoted is either 11 kills, 3 shared or 12 kills, 2 shared, sometimes including the balloon, sometimes not. 

[707shap_Srbin]

No. Documents show only 4 + 3.  And documents are rather full-preserved, so there is not gaps in score.

[Finkeren]

No. Documents show only 4 + 3. And documents are rather full-preserved, so there is not gaps in score.

Which documents are those, and can you point me to them?

 

All I've read about Litvyak suggests that her total score is not firmly established or documented, but is somewhere between 10 - 12 aircraft kills, 2 - 3 shared and one balloon.

 

Polunina argues, that her score was probably inflated and should be closer to five kills, but she doesn't question that her official score was around a dozen.

[Feathered_IV]

I hadn't seen those photos before. Litvak really has a hunters eyes.

[Lusekofte]

 

D. I. Kutinen, baker in besiedged Leningrad. He died from starvation on 3 Febr. 1942, directly at his work, at the age of 59.

He died, but didnt took even a gramm of bread he baked, wich was purposed to feed over million of starvating people in Leningrad.

 

We must remember all men and women, who fought the enemy to the last stand, even not at the front.

 

 

This is a real hero, this make me very humble. There are so many of these unknown heroes, being in the support centre for food and start to death, I am speechless 

[707shap_Srbin]

 

 

Which documents are those, and can you point me to them?

TsAMO, Podolsk, Moskow Region.

ф.9 гиап – 518568 – 1 – Исторический формуляр

ф.9 гиап – 671735 – 4 – Отчеты о боевой деятельности полка /за 1942-44 гг./

 

 There is a very big difference between documents and memoirs. The only reliable are documents. So, I would suggest to follow documents, not words or memory.

 

Of You will read A.Pokryshkin's memoirs, You can count some 75-77 air victories. Wide known from most books, that he had 59 victories. But in documents, we will find that in fact he had 46 personal + 4 shared victories. In this is his final official score.

 

Same thing with I.Kozhedub - top Allied ace. "Well known" that he had 62 kills, but documents show that he had 63!

[ZachariasX]

Even nazis like cats, it seems.

They also like little white dogs:

 

 

 

 

[J2_Trupobaw]

Not WW2 but otherwise qualifies:

 

The handsome young man is Oswald Boelcke, already a highly dedicated ace and soon-to-become father of air combat tactics. Today is 100 years from his death in action. The pretty girl on whose lap he sits is French (!) nurse, Bianka.

IIRC he did fly with her once in this fighter; I'm sure detractors of CLoD Spitgirl would not agree . 

 

Edited October 28, 2016 by Trupobaw

[Guest deleted@30725]

Yay, lets go shoot flowers at each other... ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

American

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2016 by deleted@30725

[Crump]

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

Chow time !

 

Before:

 

After:

 

Source:  "A pictorial history of 244th Sentai, Tokyo's Defenders" by Takashi Sakurai, Dainippon Kaiga Co., Japan.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

A few I have...

 

1945, playing the accordion and laughing.

 

 

A happy bunch from 1943 - only half of those pictured survived the war.

 

 

Judging by the excitement one could assume these lads just finished a routine peacetime training dogfight. Note the MiG-9 in the back.

 

 

Two French pilots happily converse with a Soviet major, one can only wonder if someone was bilingual or if they just made it work through sheer friendship.

 

 

Does it count? The happy faces of a very big bunch of aces prior to the Victory Parade in Moscow. All of them bear a single gold star.

 

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Another happy bunch.

 

 

The boys from 69 IAP, likely sometime in 1942. Five out of the eleven pictured here didn't live to see the end of 1942, and a sixth died in 1944.

 

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Despite the grim times many of these photos were taken, you can still make out a lot of genuine smiles. The strength of humanity and camaraderie is a wonderful thing, it keeps people together and makes them stronger even in the worst of situations.

 

For anyone looking towards the human face of the war, I strongly recommend watching this movie (English subtitles, Russian audio), Only Old Men Are Going To Battle. It was mostly based on the memoirs of a pilot, and peppered with different anecdotes from others who survived the war to tell them. It has comedy, sorrow, courage and love, all right as it was. I find it particularly relevant and important to the thread because while it had a rocky production and was initially going to be shelved after a screening to film and culture officials, mainly for not making the grade. However, it was the united affront put up by a number of veteran fighter pilots who were now generals, including names like Lavrinenkov and Pokryshkin, which saved the movie and led to its screening across the Soviet nations.

 

Four decades later, and it is still aired every single Victory Day. And year after year, I grow to love the movie more with each viewing.

 

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

One of my favourites, from 1943 in besieged Leningrad. Sailors of the Baltic Fleet play with an orphan, who even has her own little gun.

 

 

Another from Leningrad. Kyra Petrovskaya (now Petrovskaya Wayne) was a gifted actress before the war, who also had a hunch for marksmanship. Here she is pictured during the siege with her rifle. She lives in the United States now

 

 

A little music doesn't go bad: nurse Antonina Magadanskaya from the 2nd Ukrainian Front plays the violin, with an impromptu supporting band.

 

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Soldiers from the 322nd Rifle Division talk to a group of curious children upon reaching the Auschwitz camp, January 1945. A day before and death was not a matter of if but when for these kids, yet they survived long enough to see this day.

 

 

Soviet soldiers - more accurately, three kids - in Bornholm.

 

 

A soldier spoon-feeds an orphan.

 

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Red Army soldiers playing with children in Ukraine, shortly before the battle of Uman, July 1941.

 

 

Somewhere in Germany, this tanker could not pass the opportunity to play a number for his friends. "Everything passes, but music is eternal."

 

 

A young soldier who found time for grooming between battles.

 

 

Soviet and American soldiers having a good laugh.

 

[Lusekofte]

Nice pics Lucas 

[MiloMorai]

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/battel.asp

 

[Feathered_IV]

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/battel.asp

 

 

 

Wow.  Maybe there should be a new thread called, the human face of Lawyers.

[unreasonable]

That would be a short thread.

[VBF-12_Stele]

[Heliopause]

[707shap_Srbin]

 

 

Another happy bunch.

 

2nd from right is Khomyakova, first woman in VVS (and I believe first woman ever in any AirForses) to achive air victory. She shot down german bomber in the night skyes over Saratov in summer 1942, and that claim was confirmed with remnants of enemy bomber and crew. She died later. 

[Falco_Peregrinus]

Regia Aeronautica people having fun, mascottes and just relaxing time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and the pretty emblem of the 139° Bombing Squadron - the... "little eletric man" - "Ardisco, colpisco, me ne infischio" (I dare, I hit, I don't give a damn)

in action

Edited November 6, 2016 by Avgvstvs

[Trooper117]

Lots of interesting pics chaps... Regardless of what side people were fighting for, they all believed their cause was right, that 'God' was with them.

War has always brought out not only the worst in people, but always the best in people in equal measure.

I like the 'lighter' side in some of these pics, truly showing the human side of the conflict...