US Infantry Soldiers on Okinawa Listens to News of German Surrender

Image size: 1600 x 1200 pixel. 449 KB
Date: Tuesday, 8 May 1945
Place: Okinawa, Ryukyu Island, Japan
Photographer: Unknown

A few yards behind the front lines on Okinawa, fighting men of the US Army's 77th Infantry division listen to radio reports of Germanys surrender on May 8, 1945. Their battle hardened faces indicate the impassiveness with which they received the news of the victory on a far distant front. One minute after this photo was taken, they returned to their combat post, officially however, American forces on Okinawa celebrated the end of the war in Europe by training every ship and shore battery on a Japanese target and firing one shell simultaneously and precisely at midnight! Okinawa is a strategic island in the Ryukyu (Loochoo chain), situated 375 miles from Japan. The Western European GIs were going home; the grim expressions reflect the realization that they still had hard fighting ahead. Both the 77th and 7th Divisions had hard slow fighting in the center of Okinawa. The 77th Division was repelling an attack by the Imperial Japanese Army's 32nd Regiment. The 7th Division was also attacked by the Imperial Japanese Army's 24th Division. By noon of May 5, 1945, there was apprehension at the 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Division, command post, which had not fully appreciated the strength of the infiltration. From a hill near the command post Lt. Col. Albert V. Hard, executive officer, could plainly see several Japanese soldiers 600 yards away on Tanabaru Escarpment. The Japanese were in turn watching American activity. Lying on his stomach, Colonel Hard fired some shots from an M1 at the Japanese to neutralize them. While he was so engaged, a soldier ran up with a radio report that the German armies had surrendered. "Well now," Hard said, "if we just had the Japs off the escarpment we'd be all right, wouldn't we?" 

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Captain Allen Leading a Group of Guadalcanal Natives in the Rendition of a Hymn in Pidgin

Image size: 1600 x 1191 pixel. 601 KB
Date: Friday, 11 May 1945
Place: Henderson Field, Lunga Point, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands
Photographer: Unknown

Captain Allen leading a group of Guadalcanal natives in the rendition of a hymn in pidgin. Captain Spencer M. Allen was formerly associated with WGN Radio, Chicago. The eight Armed Forces Radio Services (AFRS) stations set up in the south Pacific were called the Mosquito Network of the American Expeditionary Stations (AES). These stations were: WVUQ Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands (1000 watts, 690 kilohertz, second & key station); WVUS Noumea, New Caledonia (1000 watss, 975 kilohertz, first station); WVUR Esperitu Santo, New Hebrides (1000 watts 1040 kilohertz); WVUT Nandi, Fiji (50 watts 660 kilohertz); WVTI Cebu City, Philippines 500 watts (1340 kilohertz); WVTM Manila, Philippines 1000 watts (1300 kilohertz); WVUV Pago Pago, American Samoa 50 watts (1270 kilohertz); and Navy Radio Tutuila, Samoa 10 watts (1270 kilohertz). At Guadalcanal, the radio station studio and transmitter sites were in a coconut grove about one-half mile from Lunga beach. A dallas hut was divided into a control room and a studio. There was a large plate glass window and some sound proofing between the two rooms. AES staff dubbed their small studio shack in the coconut grove, Radio City, an ironic reference to the imposing headquarters of the NBC network in New York City.Mosquito's weekly broadcasting included 13 hours of U.S.-made AFRS transcriptions and 28 hours of decommercialized U.S. network shows—flown in from the States. The rest was local material, ranging from the reading of war correspondence in the area to burlesques such as McGoo's Booze Hour ("Next time you visit your PX take home a handy family-size container of McGoo's Old Man in the convenient 60-gallon drum") or the Atabrine Cocktail Hour to encourage the taking of anti-malarials. On the evening of March 2, 1944, AES-Guadalcanal, first broadcast a test signal. Regular broadcasts started March 13 and lasted throguh 1946. Two days before this photo was taken, WVUQ broadcast news of the German Surrender.\ Of the 300 AFRS stations in operation worldwide in 1945, only 60 remained in 1949. 

Source:

http://www.worldwar2database.com/gallery3/index.php/wwii1082

Oberst Richard Koll in his Panzerbefehlswagen III 'RO6'

Image size: 1600 x 1108 pixel. 561 KB
Date: October 1941
Place: Vyazma, Smolensk Oblast, Soviet Union
Photographer: Helmut Ritgen

This picture was taken in October 1941, and showing Oberst Richard Koll (7 April 1897 - 13 May 1963), commanding officer of Panzer-Regiment 11 / 6.Panzer-Division, and at that period the combined tank strength of both 6. and 7. Panzer-Division, in a confident pose in the cupola of his Panzerbefehlswagen III 'RO6' - note detail of frame aerial. At the right is the CO's signals officer (Nachrichtenoffizier), wearing earphones (kopfhörer). A pole aerial rises behind the Gefreiter standing at the left. Koll received Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes (Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross) in 15 July 1941. In the last two years of the war, he was the Chief of Armed Forces Motor Transportation. This seems a bizarre posting for a highly experienced Panzer commander. According to Wolgang Paul (Brennpunkte), Koll was transffered to the desk job because of the failed Cherkassy relief attack in the early 1944. Someone had to take the blame and apparently this someone was Koll, although he did everything he could, was a 1st class panzer officer and admired by his soldiers and officers, which were dissapointed when he had to leave 1. Panzer-Division, his previous "normal" assignment. His corps commander, General der Panzertruppe Hermann Breith, relieved him of command with an unflattering evaluation on February 21, 1944, with Oberbefehlshaber of 1. Panzerarmee, Generaloberst Hans Valentin Hube, concurring.

Source:

Helmut Ritgen photo collection

Book "The 6th Panzer Division: 1937-45" by Oberst a.D. Helmut Ritgen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Koll