World War 2: Invasion of Poland / Winter War

[lkdood]

German troops marching into the city of Bromberg (the German name for the Polish city of Bydgoszcz) found several hundred German nationals dead from Polish sniper fire. The snipers were equipped with arms by the retreating Polish forces. Bodies are shown on a forest road, September 8, 1939.
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[lkdood]

A damaged Polish armored train carrying tanks captured by the 14th SS-Leibstandard Adolf Hitler Division, near Blonie, during the invasion of Poland in September of 1939.
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[lkdood]

German soldiers, taken prisoner by the Polish army during the Nazi invasion, are shown while they were held captive in Warsaw, on October 2, 1939.
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[lkdood]

A young Polish boy returns to what was his home and squats among the ruins during a pause in the German air raids on Warsaw, Poland, in September of 1939. German attacks lasted until Warsaw surrendered on September 28. One week later, the last of the Polish forces capitulated near Lublin, giving full control of Poland to Germany and the Soviet Union.
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[lkdood]

Adolf Hitler salutes parading troops of the German Wehrmacht in Warsaw, Poland, on October 5, 1939 after the German invasion. Behind Hitler are, from left to right: Colonel General Walther von Brauchitsch, Lieutenant General Friedrich von Cochenhausen, Colonel General Gerd von Rundstedt, and Colonel General Wilhelm Keitel.
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[csbtatu]

Watch "The Pianist" I was watching it today..its about the Germans invading polland

 

[lkdood]

Earlier in 1939, Imperial Japanese army and naval units continued to attack and push forward into China and Mongolia. Here Japanese soldiers advance inland over the beach after landing at Swatow (Shantou), one of the remaining South China coast ports still under Chinese control at that time, on July 10, 1939. After a short engagement with the Chinese defenders the Japanese entered the city without encountering much further opposition.
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[lkdood]

On the Mongolian border, Japanese tanks roll across the vast plains of the Mongolian-Manchurian steppe, near the Mongolian border, on July 21, 1939. Manchukuo troops were reinforced by the Japanese when the border warfare with Soviet forces flared up suddenly in this sector.
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[lkdood]

A Japanese machine gun unit cautiously moves forward, past two Soviet armored cars abandoned in fighting along the Mongolian frontier in July of 1939.
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[lkdood]

On November 30, 1939, after Soviet demands made to Finland went unmet -- they were asking the Finns to give them land concessions and to destroy fortifications along the border -- the USSR invaded Finland. Some 450,000 Soviet soldiers crossed the border, starting a brutal, frozen battle that would be called the Winter War. In this image, a member of a Finnish anti-aircraft detachment, wearing his white camouflage uniform, works with a range-finder on December 28, 1939, during a Russian aerial attack.
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[lkdood]

A house burns furiously after being hit by a Soviet bomb during a Russian air raid on Turku, a port city in the southwest of Finland, on December 27, 1939.
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[lkdood]

In a frozen, wooded battlefront "somewhere in Finland," Finnish troops scatter to take shelter as Soviet planes fly over on an air raid on January 19, 1940.
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[lkdood]

Finnish soldiers, members of one of the ski battalions that fought against invading Russian troops, march with their reindeer on March 28, 1940.
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[lkdood]

Spoils of war -- captured Soviet tanks and cars, along a road in a snow covered forest on January 17, 1940. Finnish troops had just overpowered an entire Soviet division.
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[lkdood]

A Swedish volunteer, "somewhere in Northern Finland," protects himself from the sub-zero arctic cold with a mask over his face on February 20, 1940, while on duty against the Russian Invaders.
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[lkdood]

The winter of 1939-1940 in Finland was exceptionally cold. In January, temperatures dropped below -40° in some places. Frostbite was a constant threat, and the corpses of soldiers killed in battle froze solid, often in eerie poses. This January 31, 1940 photo shows a frozen dead Russian soldier, his face, hands and clothing covered with a dusting of snow. After 105 days, the Finns and Russians signed a peace treaty, allowing Finland to retain sovereignty, while it ceded 11 percent of its territory to the Soviets.
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[lkdood]

The German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, in flames off Montevideo, Uruguay on December 19, 1939. The crew of the Admiral Graf Spee had just engaged in the Battle of the River Plate, after three Royal Navy cruisers hunted it down and attacked. The damage from the attack did not sink the German battleship, but sent it to a harbor in Montevideo for repairs. Unable to stay long enough for repairs, and unwilling to run a waiting blockade, the crew of the Admiral Graf Spee sailed a short distance out of port and scuttled the ship, seen here shortly before it sank.
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[lkdood]

Restaurant operator Fred Horak of Somerville, Massachusetts, put this sign on the window of his lunch room, shown March 18, 1939. Horak was a native of Prague, Czechoslovakia.
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[lkdood]

Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft being manufactured, likely in Buffalo, New York, ca 1939.
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[lkdood]

While German forces were concentrated on Poland, anxiety was rising on the Western Front, with French troops welcoming British soldiers as they deployed along the border with Germany. Here, French troops pose in a cantonment in France on December 18, 1939.
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