American pilots resting with a Japanese skull, 1944

A number of firsthand accounts, including those of American servicemen, attest to the taking of "trophies" from the corpses of Imperial Japanese troops in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Historians have attributed the phenomenon to a campaign of deh…

Reindeer in Murmansk, 1941

World War II planes bomb a hillside while a shellshocked reindeer looks on. The stark interface between the killing machines of man and the natural grandeur and beauty of the reindeer was not “natural”. Yevgeny Khaldei, the famous Soviet photographer who t…

American soldier killed by German snipers in Leipzig, 1945

During the final days of the war a platoon of machine gunners entered a Leipzig building looking for positions to set up covering fire points which would protect foot soldiers of the 2nd U.S. Infantry advancing across the bridge. Two members of the platoon f…

The picture that shows the colossal scale of the D-Day operation, 1944

This photograph was taken three days after the Normandy beachhead was established, on June 9th, 1944, and shows the colossal scale of the operation to transport men and material for the liberation of Europe. The landing ships are putting cargo ashore on Om…

Japanese Type D Koryu midget submarines in drydock, 1945

By definition, a midget submarine is less than 150 tons, has a crew of no more than eight, has no on-board living accommodation, and operates in conjunction with a mother ship to provide the living accommodations and other support. The Japanese Navy built at…

Herbert List’s pictures from the German-occupied Ukraine, 1943

Herbert List was a German photographer, who worked for magazines, including Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Life, and was associated with Magnum Photos. He traveled regularly between Greece, Italy, and Paris until the outbreak of World War II, when he settled …

Camp Commandant Amon Goeth, infamous from the movie “Schindler’s List”, standing on his balcony preparing to shoot prisoners, 1943

Amon Leopold Goeth (German: Amon Göth) the villain of the movie Schindler's List, was born in 1908 in Vienna, Austria. At the age of 24, he joined the Nazi party. In 1940, Amon Goeth became a member of the Waffen-SS. He was assigned to the SS headquarters fo…

Soviet soldiers openly sexually harass a German woman in Leipzig, 1945

Soviet soldiers openly sexually harass a passing German woman near the West Hall section of the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof central railway terminus. As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of the war, mass rapes took place …

Captured Soviet soldier dressed in SN-42 body armor, 1944

Portrait of a young Soviet prisoner of war in a steel breastplate SN-42, made of 2mm steel (.08") and weighing 3.5 kg (7.7 lbs), captured by Finnish troops during the Finnish-Soviet Continuation War. A testament to the breastplate’s effectiveness, the youn…

Jewish woman chased by men and youth armed with clubs during the Lviv pogroms, 1941

Chased by youth armed with clubs, this woman is fleeing from a "death dealer" whose left leg can be seen at the left-hand edge of the photograph. The Lviv pogroms were the consecutive massacres of Jews living in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), perpet…

Death mask of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, 1945

A death mask is a mold taken from a person's face after they have died. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits. Wounded in France three months before his death, Rommel’s death mask shows evidence of the injuries, part…

V-J Day kiss in Times Square, 1945

After four years of blackout, all the lights in Time Square went on as Mayor LaGuardia announced the Japanese surrender. In a celebration mirrored around the world, the New Yorkers took to the Square to celebrate a new era of peace, and hope, the image of wh…

A Papuan Fuzzy Wuzyy Angel guiding an injured Australian soldier home, 1942

An Australian soldier, George "Dick" Whittington, is aided by Papuan orderly Raphael Oimbari, at the Battle of Buna-Gona. Whittington died in February 1943 from the effects of bush typhus, this little-known killer of many Allied and Japanese soldiers in the …

The grave of an Allied pilot buried by Germans during the North African Campaign, 1941.

This photograph was taken by George Rodger of No. 1 Section Army Film & Photographic Unit; the soldier posing was most likely his driver (original picture). Many times this picture is labeled as a photo of a British grave and the wreckage of a British …

Boeing B-17F bombing through clouds over Bremen, 1943

The B-17s (Boeing Flying Fortress) are members of the 384th Bombardment Group ("Triangle P"). Considering the date, on missions like this, the B-17s would normally be assisted by an aircraft with a nose-mounted version of the British H2S or H2X radar, capa…

The Big Three at the Tehran Conference, 1943

The Tehran was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was held in the Soviet Union's embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first of the World War II conferences of the "Big Th…

A German woman facing public humiliation because of a romantic affair with a Polish man, 1942

German racial laws were strictly enforced and sexual relationships between Germans and Poles were illegal. The placard around her neck reads: “Ich bin aus der Volksgemeinschaft ausgestoßen!" (English: "I am expelled from the People’s Community!”). Picture ta…

A Dutch woman entering military captivity with her husband, a German soldier, 1944

A Dutch woman is seen here with her husband, a German soldier that she had married during the German occupation of the Netherlands. Refusing to leave his side, she marched with the German prisoners to the Prisoner of War holding center. Picture taken in Walc…