March of the Churchills!
I've been in Kingston on course since the beginning of January and will be there until the end of March so I have been more than a little busy, hence no real posts. One of the really cool things about the course is the number of black and white photos of the 2nd World War that they have hanging in the halls of the buildings. I asked if they had digital copies of the pictures and no one really knew, so I snap these with my iPhone. Here is the first of the collection, I don't know what everything is in these photos so some of the captions will be best guesses. Hope you enjoy!
The Netherlands
Oratona, Italy
Churchills supporting infantry in Dieppe (thanks Sean)
25 Pdr crew jumping into action (literally!)
Brit Calvary, JJ
Brit HMGs in shell scrapes in WWI (Thanks Bob)
Luftwaffe POW being escorted
The Royal Canadian Regiment dug in ready to hold the line (thanks Bob!)
Staghound after crossing bridge
Fighting in built up areas
Admin movements onto the secured beach heads
Engineer made tank and man bridge with Shermans
Canadians in Korea (you were right Rob)
Canadian Sherman E8 in Korea (Steve and Rob you guys were bang on)
Sherman with Crab fail
Great pictures! The "march of the churchills" looks very much like dieppe.
ReplyDeletei would agree that really looks like Dieppe.
ReplyDelete@sean, I think you might be right so I updated accordingly. There is an awesome picture in one of the other buildings of Wasps firing. Hopefully I can get some more pictures this week.
ReplyDeleteI think that the second and third last photos are from Korea. Note the infantry is wearing Brit ammo pouches, I don't think the FSSF would be wearing that, they would have been using US gear. It also looks like they are wearing cold weather gear, which might lean more towards Korea. The Sherman is an Easy 8, which we used in Korea. I'm fairly confident that we didn't use them in Italy, let alone NW Europe. Great photos though. Keep 'em coming. Need more artillery photos.
ReplyDeleteYeah was gonna say that Sherman is definitely an E8. great pics!
ReplyDelete@Rkelly and indierockclimber, I was thinking that it could be a E8 but I haven't seen one that has the; skirting like that one. All the E8's that I've seen have a straight side down vs the lip for the skirting.
ReplyDeletehttp://farm2.static.flickr.com/1095/966556938_3d8a1c8afc_m.jpg there's 1 other image I've found of an E8 with skirts, though that may even be post-Korea
ReplyDeleteDang I keep coming back to that picture. Though it's really difficult to tell- the marking on the turret side looks a bit like the blue circle with crescent moon at the bottom used by the Israelis.
ReplyDeleteI'll ask around at the college and see if anyone knows for sure. After seeing the other picture of the E8 with skirts I totally agree it could definitely be one.
ReplyDeleteI also totally agree that what I have called the FSSF could totally be Korea, I'll see if anyone knows any more about the pictures.
I'm 99.9% sure that's an Easy 8. You can see the extension of the superstructure. Plus it has a muzzle break on the gun, so it's definitely post 1944. Maybe even an E8 HVSS?
ReplyDelete@Rob and Indie, you guys were right on all accounts, I've updated the post to reflect the Korean pictures.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could say that made me proud! Instead it made me wonder what good information that kicked out of my brain to make space :)
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the pics!
Drew,
ReplyDeleteThe pic titled "Brit Infantry" is actually "The Royal Canadian Regiment in Italy". For those that read this blog.....that's Drew's regiment.
The HMGs in Shell Scraps is actually a WW I pic. You can tell because they're wearing MK 1 helmets.
Cheers.
Bob
@Bob, thanks for sorting me out! I've updated the post accordingly.
ReplyDeleteExcellent pictures. I used to work in a factory office building in Essex (East of London) which had loads of old post war pictures in their lobby. As you found out the origin of these photo's and even details of what is in them can be devilishly hard to find out. No-one in the building could identify the photo's I saw, which was a great pity.
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