Never Before Seen WWII Photos

in #wwii6 years ago (edited)

Hello Fellow Steemians!

I would like to welcome you all to a brand new Steemit adventure! For the first time ever I am going to share with the world (only here on Steemit of course) previously unseen photographs taken by an American Infantryman in World War II.

My Grandfather served with the Army and was stationed in the European theatre at the end of the war. Lucky for us he brought his 35mm camera with him and took over 400 pictures, but when he returned home he never developed the film and he never talked about it. Sadly, he passed away in the early 1990s. We won't have much to go on except for the photographs themselves.

A few years back my Grandmother gave me the film and ask that I have it developed with only one request. She said, “I know he met women over there, so please if there are pictures with other women don’t show them to me.”. Don’t worry guys they didn’t meet until after the war ;)

What I found on that film was a treasure trove of profile shots, landscapes, battlefields, and even a concentration camp. It turns out my grandfather had quite the artistic eye and most of the photgraphs are of great quality. These photographs have never before been seen in the public and now I am bringing them to Steemit to share this amazing story of my Grandfather in World War 2.

Its funny how fate would have it, but it appears he was assigned to an Army headquarters company, maybe as a security detachment. The thing is I was also part of a Personal Security Detachment in Afghanistan for our Squadron Headquarters which I find pretty cool.

So for the next few months, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I will feature a new photo from my grandfather. I will provide as much information as I know (and some humorous Army Veteran commentary) and I hope you guys will be able to add to the story with all of your knowledge as well. I will try to go in chronological order as I understand it to be and together we will take a journey through the European Battlefront at the end of the World War II. I will continue to run my “American in Germany” blog in between so also check that out.

For this post please enjoy a few teasers and let me know what you guys think! I am so excited for this and I hope you all are too! Fell free to offer any suggestions you have have to make this as interesting and exciting as possible.

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One of many plane photographs can't wait to learn about them along with you. Here we have a British Supermarine Spitfire in flight.

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Here is my Grandfather Joe sitting on a good ol Harley-Davidson, you will be seeing lots of him!

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A couple GIs hanging out in a jeep, maybe returning from a supply run. I see bread and a newspaper.

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Here we have a tank round laying in the street. Is it a 50mm? Could be. Im an old cavalry man I can't count that high!

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And lastly for you today we have a bombed out building somewhere in South Western Germany, we will find out more about that later.

Thanks everyone for stopping by and please up vote and Resteem this post!

I own all of these photographs so please respect my family history and ask permission prior to use. Thank You!

Post Edit: The plane in the picture is actually an American P47 Thunderbolt. You can read more about it here.

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Awesome post!
I shared this on a couple relevant subreddits for you!
Here and here

Voting this comment up in case someone wants to upvote them on Reddit for some extra visibility!

Thank you so much! I hope those folks enjoy it over there as well!!

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thanks so much for sharing these! Its important we preserve history.

I agree! Not too much from ww2 on here days so I hope it catches on!

Amazing relics of a crazy time. It must have been such a crazy life to live back in those days.

I couldn’t agree more, and thats why I find it all so fascinating! Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate the comment.

Not sure but the plane might actually be a p47 thunderbolt. Any ideas on that? Sorry about that!

It is hard to tell from the silhouette in this photo (high-speed objects distort in photos), but looking at the staggered 8-gun armament and the pitot tube on the left wing, I think this is a P47.

I sent a message to a WWII reactor friend of mine he's an expert on planes once I get confirmation I will add an edit to the post. But I think you're absolutely right.

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Yup my buddy agrees P47!

Cool!...:)...

Thanks for stopping by!

hey balticbadger! this is a good program to help plankton and redfish move up to minnow status, here's the link to check it out in case you're interested, its a very good program:
https://steemit.com/indonesia/@paulag/league-of-excellence-and-curation-leagues-week-18-indonesia

Thanks a lot! I will check it out!

I just got another link from the originator herself paula g..this one might be an updated one:

https://steemit.com/steem/@paulag/redfish-power-up-league-and-wall-of-fame-week-7

Your Grandfather sure did have artistic eyes, He did an amazing job in capturing the moments he spent in service.

I guess he left the films undeveloped so you can find them someday, explore them and get the feeling of how it was back then.

I love the Harley-Davidson bike and how he posed on it. Your Grandfather was a fine man!

Thank you very much @audreybits, that's very nice of you. I agree, he took a ton of great pictures. That would be really cool if he had taken film while he was there. We will have to wait and see if any turns up!

yeah.. Hopefully, it will turn up!

howdy there @balticbadger! wow you were right sir..this is gonna be great! Are you saying that all 400 photos are this good in quality after all these years? that's pretty unusual isn't it?
this is super cool, I'm looking forward to more.

I am really not sure if it’s unusual or not, but yeah they were in pristine condition stored in an old heavy duty film canister. I am returning to the states for my brothers wedding in the fall and Ill be sure to snap a picture of the original film and canister. It’s really cool. THere was even a 50 caliber unfired shell in there. It was like my grandfather left it for me to find. I was a 50 cal Machine gunner for some time in the Army.

Wow that is an interesting coincidence

dang balticbadger! how long were you in the Army and what branch? man there are tons of post material right there about stories you could tell I bet you!

I did an enlistment in the Army at Ft.Bragg. I got millions of stories, haha just not quite ready to head down that road yet. Need to get a little more experience first. Know what I mean?

more experience in writing and formatting of the posts you mean?

Also with steem in general and honestly I need a little more confidence first. It's so personal to me I don't even share that with my family. I've had negative experiences sharing my time in the army with ”civilians” where its just impossible for them to understand. I'm hoping with some more time.on steem, it will be a little easier for me to share.

howdy tonight sir balticbadger! except that it's not night time there, it's 12:30 am here. anyway I totally understand. well here on steemit people understand way way better than people in the outside world, it's amazing.... so you can be confident in that!

Hi balticbadger,

This post has been upvoted by the Curie community curation project and associated vote trail as exceptional content (human curated and reviewed). Have a great day :)

Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.

Wow, thanks a lot! I really appreciate it. Have a great day as well.

This is why Curie is such a valuable service. If I didn't follow @curie I would have missed your post for certain. Looking forward to the other pictures.

Your blog exploring some family history reminds me of a project my mother did just after she retired. She had a huge box full of letters that my grandparents wrote to each other before they were married. It was pretty interesting because they were casually talking about the stuff that was going on in the news that we think of as important history now. The letters start in 1929 just before the stock market crash.

That is really interesting! It sounds like it would be worth it to compiling those letters into some sort of book or publication. Or even publishing them on here! I know lots of people would find it very interesting! I am so honored to be featured by @curie, and I have to agree I have found some great bloggers there! Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment, its what I love best about this, hearing from all the steemians! Have a great one!

Mom did make a Wordpress site from those letters. It should be easy to find some interesting bits to post.

Say, has anyone introduced you to STEEM Basic Income? I would be honored if you would allow me to nominate you for a share of SBI.

You don't need to do anything. As long as you stay active on the platform, SBI will give your posts a little upvote.

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I've seen a little bit here and there about it, but other than that I don't know much about it. Feel free to sponsor me I would be honored as well! Thanks!

Wow how cool! I am really looking forward to the continuation of this series! What a neat way to keep your grandfather in your thoughts and we are all lucky here on Steem blockchain that you are sharing these pieces of history here! Much love - Carl

Thank you so much! I am so happy I found Steem its a life changer!

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