World War II in Photographs
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1944
ABOVE
View of Cassino after heavy
bombardment showing a knocked-out
Sherman tank by a Bailey bridge in
the foreground with Monastery Ridge
and Castle Hill in the background.
301
LEFT
German prisoners of war
after the battle of Monte Cassino.
RIGHT
A British soldier with a Bren gun
in the ruins of Cassino, May 18, 1944.
LEFT
French women and children, who
were unable to return home after
the outbreak of war, lay flowers on
the grave of an unknown British soldier,
May 19, 1944. They did this every day.
302
1944
RIGHT
German units moving up to Normandy
were harassed by Allied air attacks and
Resistance sabotage. On June 10, a unit
of 2nd SS Panzer Division massacred 642
civilians in the village of Oradour-sur Glane
near Limoges. No clear motive has been
established, but revenge for the abduction
of a German officer has been suggested.
BELOW
Men of the 2nd Battalion The
Royal Warwickshire Regiment advance
through a wheatfield during Operation
Charnwood, which took Caen on
July 7-9 in the wake of the bombing
raid which did terrible damage to the city.
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1944
ABOVE
Although the censor has obscured his
unit-title this Bren-gunner's divisional flash
(a double "T" for Tyne-Tees) identifies him
as a member of the 50th (Northumbrian)
Division, which went ashore on Gold Beach
and fought in the Bayeux area. The Bren
was accurate and robust, but lacked the
firepower of German belt-fed machine guns.
333
1944
ALLIED ADVANCE AND LIBERATION
D-Day was only the beginning. After it the Allies faced a long and
difficult battle to break out of Normandy, and some of the fighting
in the Summer of 1944 resembled the attritional battles of the First
World War. The Americans eventually broke out on the western
flank in late July, and the Allies, now forming the British-Canadian
21st Army Group under General Montgomery and US 12th Army
Group under Bradley, encircled much of the German army in the
Falaise Pocket. Thereafter the advance was swift, and by the end
of August it seemed that victory was in sight.
BELOW
The sharp end of war. A section of British
infantry, its men with bayonets fixed and
an abundance of ammunition, led by its
corporal with a sten-gun, advance on
June 26, during Operation Epsom, an
unsuccessful attempt to outflank the key
city of Caen from the west.
332
1944
ABOVE
The Normandy Landings were a
logistic operation of unprecedented
scale. Here American landing ships unload
while engineers work on clearing beach
obstacles and preparing routes inland.
331
ABOVE
A scene on Queen White sector of
Sword Beach. Men of the 1st Battalion
The South Lancashire regiment in
3rd Division's first assault wave, with
amphibious tanks of A Squadron,
13th/18th Hussars in the background.
RIGHT
The Allies knew that the Germans would
defend and then destroy French ports.
The components of two prefabricated
Mulberry harbours were towed to France
after D-Day. Although the US harbour
off Omaha beach was badly damaged by
a storm on June 19, the British Mulberry
off Arromanches, shown here, survived.
330
1944
.EFT
One of the many Robert Capa photographs
which helped inspire the early sequences in
the movie Saving Private Ryan, shows men
of Company E, 116th Regimental Combat
Team among obstacles on the shoreline of
"Bloody Omaha". The Germans held the
sandy cliffs just inland; their positions had
not been badly damaged by naval or air
bombardment and most of the amphibious
tanks meant to accompany the assaulting
infantry sank in the choppy sea.
BELOW
Infantry of the 3rd Canadian Division's
Régiment de la Chaudière land on Juno
Beach. The Anglo-Canadian landings
emphasized the importance of getting
tanks and specialist beach-clearing vehicles
ashore before the bulk if the infantry.
329
1944
BELOW
Infantry of the US 7th Corps move
over the sea wall on Utah beach at the
western end of the Allied landings.
328
THE NORMANDY LANDINGS
D-Day, the Allied invasion of France on June 6, 1944, was the largest
amphibious operation in history. Planning began in 1943, and it was
quickly decided that the Bay of the Seine offered better prospects
than the closer but more obvious Pas de Calais or more distant
Brittany. Three airborne divisions (two US, one British) secured
the flanks of the landings on five beaches, Utah and Omaha for the
Americans and Gold, Juno and Sword for the British and Canadians.
ABOVE
US Paratroops have a last-minute
equipment check before boarding their
Dakota aircraft in southern England.
RIGHT
The landing zone of the 6th British
Airborne Division near the Normandy
village of Ranville. Paratroops were,
of necessity, lightly equipped: heavier
weapons were flown in by gliders,
many of which can be seen here.
327