Rare 1945 Photos

Rare 1945 photos are found -
These photos are well worth your time to

see - and read the history, helping those

of you too young to remember the times

to understand so much of what the world

endured during WWII.
Rare World War II photographs

Rare 1945 photos are found -
These photos are well worth your time to

see - and read the history, helping those

of you too young to remember the times

to understand so much of what the world

endured during WWII.
Rare World War II photographs

  1
German Wehrmacht General Anton Dostler is tied to a stake before his execution by

a firing squad in a stockade in Aversa ,

Italy , on December 1, 1945. The General, Commander of the 75th Army Corps, was

sentenced to death by an United States

Military Commission in Rome for having

ordered the shooting of 15 unarmed 

American prisoners of war, in La Spezia,

Italy, on March 26, 1944. (AP Photo)

  2
Soviet soldiers with lowered standards of

the defeated Nazi forces
during the Victory Day parade in Moscow , on June 24, 1945.
(Yevgeny Khaldei/Waralbum.ru) #

  3
Gaunt and emaciated, but happy at their

release from Japanese captivity, two 

Allied prisoners pack their meager

belongings, after being freed near

Yokohama, Japan, on September 11,

1945, by men of an American mercy

squadron of the U.S. Navy. (AP Photo) #

  4
The return of victorious Soviet soldiers

at a railway station in Moscow in 1945. 

(Arkady Shaikhet/Waralbum.ru) #

  5
Aerial view of Hiroshima, Japan, one year

after the atomic bomb blast shows some

small amount of reconstruction amid

much ruin on July 20, 1946.

The slow pace of rebuilding is attributed

to a shortage of building equipment and

materials. (AP Photo/Charles P. Gorry) #

  6
A Japanese man amid the scorched

wreckage and rubble that was once
his home in Yokohama , Japan . ( NARA )

  7
Red Army photographer Yevgeny Khaldei (center) in Berlin with Soviet forces, near

the Brandenburg Gate in May of 1945.

(Waralbum.ru) #

  8
A P-47 Thunderbolt of the U.S. Army 12th Air Force flies low over the crumbled ruins of what once was Hitler's retreat at Berchtesgaden, Germany, on May 26, 1945.

Small and large bomb craters dot the

grounds around the wreckage.

(AP Photo) #

  9
Hermann Goering, once the leader of the

formidable Luftwaffe and second in

command of the German Reich under

Hitler, appears in a mugshot on file with

the Central Registry of War Criminals

and Security Suspects in Paris, France,

on November 5, 1945.

Goering surrendered to U.S. soldiers in

Bavaria , on May 9, 1945, and was

eventually taken to Nuremburg to face

trial for War Crimes. (AP Photo) #

  10
The interior of the courtroom of the

Nuremberg War Crimes Trials in 1946

during the Trial of the Major War

Criminals, prosecuting 24 government

and civilian leaders of Nazi Germany.

Visible here is Hermann Goering, former

leader of the Luftwaffe, seated in the

box at center right, wearing a gray

jacket, headphones, and dark glasses.

Next to him sits Rudolf Hess, former

Deputy Fuhrer of Germany, then Joachim

von Ribbentrop, former Nazi Minister of

Foreign Affairs, Wilhelm Keitel, former

leader of Germany's Supreme Command

(blurry face), and Ernst Kaltenbrunner,

the highest ranking surviving SS-leader.

Goering, von Ribbentrop, Keitel, and

Kaltenbrunner were sentenced to death

by hanging along with 8 others --

Goering committed suicide the night

before the execution.

Hess was sentenced to life imprisonment, which he served at Spandau Prison,

Berlin, where he died in 1987.

(AP Photo/STF) #

  11
Many of Germany 's captured new and

experimental aircraft were displayed in 

an exhibition as part of London's Thanks

giving week on September 14, 1945. 

Among the aircraft are a number of jet

and rocket propelled planes. Here, a side

view of the Heinkel He-162 "Volksjaeger", propelled by a turbo-jet unit mounted

above the fuselage, in Hyde park, in

London . (AP Photo) #

  12
one year after the D-Day landings in

Normandy , German prisoners landscape

the first U.S. cemetery at Saint-Laurent-

sur-Mer , France , near " Omaha " Beach,

on May 28, 1945.

(AP Photo/Peter J. Carroll) #

  13
Sudeten Germans make their way to the

railway station in Liberec, in former 

Czechoslovakia, to be transferred to

Germany in this July, 1946 photo.

After the end of the war, millions of

German nationals and ethnic Germans

were forcibly expelled from both territory Germany had annexed, and formerly

German lands that were transferred to

Poland and the Soviet Union .

The estimated numbers of Germans

involved ranges from 12 to 14 million,

with a further estimate of between

500,000 and 2 million dying during the

expulsion. (AP Photo/CTK) #

  14
A survivor of the first atomic bomb ever

used in warfare, Jinpe Teravama retains 

scars after the healing of burns from the

bomb explosion, in Hiroshima, in June of

1947. (AP Photo) #

  15
Disabled buses that have littered the

streets of Tokyo are used to help relieve 

the acute housing shortage in the

Japanese capital on October 2, 1946.

Homeless Japanese who hauled the buses

into a vacant lot are converting them into

homes for their families.

(AP Photo/Charles Gorry) #

  16
An American G.I. places his arm around

a Japanese girl as they view the surround

ings of HibiyaPark, near the Tokyo palace

of the emperor, on January 21, 1946.

(AP Photo/Charles Gorry) #

  17
This is an aerial view of the city of London around St. Paul 's Cathedral showing bomb-damaged areas in April of 1945.

(AP Photo) #

  18
General Charles de Gaulle (center) shaking hands with children, two months after the German capitulation inLorient, France , in

July of 1945. Lorient was the location of

a German U-boat (submarine) base during

World War II. Between January 14 and

February 17, 1943, as many as 500 high-

explosive aerial bombs and more than

60,000 incendiary bombs were dropped

on Lorient .

The city was almost completely destroyed, with nearly 90% of the city flattened.

(AFP/Getty Images)#

  19
The super transport ship, General W.P.

Richardson, docked in New York, with 

veterans of the European war cheering

on June 7, 1945. Many soldiers were

veterans of the African campaign,

Salerno , Anzio , Cassino and the winter

warfare in Italy 's mountains.

(AP Photo/Tony Camerano) #

  20
This aerial file photo shows a portion of

Levittown , New York , in 1948 shortly 

after the mass-produced suburb was

completed on Long Island farmland in

New York . This prototypical suburban

community was the first of many mass-

produced housing developments that

went up for soldiers coming home from

World War II. It also became a symbol

of postwar suburbia in the U.S.

(AP Photo/Levittown Public Library, File) #

  21
This television set, retailing for $100, is

reportedly the first moderately priced

receiver manufactured in quantity.

Rose Clare Leonard watches the screen, 

which reproduces a 5x7 image, as she

tunes in at the first public post-war

showing at a New York department store, on August 24, 1945. Although television

was invented prior to World War II,

the war prevented mass production.

Soon after the war, sales and production

picked up, and by 1948, regular

commercial network programming had

begun. (AP Photo/Ed Ford) #

  22
A U.S. soldier examines a solid gold statue, part of Hermann Goering's private loot,

found by the 7th U.S. Army in a

mountainside cave near Schonau am

Konigssee, Germany, on May 25, 1945.

The secret cave, the second found to date, also contained stolen priceless paintings

from all over Europe.

(AP Photo/Jim Pringle)#

  23
In Europe , some churches have been

completely ruined, but others still stand 

amid utter devastation. Munchengladbach Cathedral stands here in the rubble, 

though still in need of repairs, seen in

Germany , on November 20, 1945.

(AP Photo)#

  24
on May 21, Colonel Bird, Commandant of

Belsen Camp, gave the order for the last 

hut at Belsen Concentration Camp to be

burned. A rifle salute was fired in honor 

of the dead, the British flag was run up at

the same moment as a flame-thrower set

fire to the last hut. A German flag and

portrait of Hitler went up in flames inside

the hut in June of 1945.

(AP Photo/British Official Photo) #

  25
German mothers walk their children to

school through the streets of Aachen, 

Germany, on June 6, 1945, for registration at the first public school to be opened by

the U.S. military government after the war. (AP Photo/Peter J. Carroll) #

  26
A general view of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East meeting in Tokyo

in April, 1947. on May 3, 1946, the Allies

began the trial of 28 Japanese civilian and military leaders for war crimes.

Seven were hanged and others were 

sentenced to prison terms. (AP Photo) #

  27
Soviet soldiers on the march in northern

Korea in October of 1945. Japan had ruled the Korean peninsula for 35 years, until

the end of World War II. At that time,

Allied leaders decided to temporarily

occupy the country until elections could

be held and a government established.

Soviet forces occupied the north, 

while U.S. . forces occupied the south.

The planned elections did not take place, 

as the Soviet Union established a

communist state in North Korea, and the

U.S. set up a pro-western state in South

Korea - each state claiming to be

sovereign over the entire peninsula.

This standoff led to the Korean War in

1950, which ended in 1953 with the

signing of an armistice -- but, to this day,

the two countries are still technically at

war with each other. (Waralbum.ru) #

  28
In this October 1945 photo from North

Korea 's official Korean Central News 

Agency, communist leader Kim Il Sung

chats with a farmer from Qingshanli,

KangsoCounty, South Pyongyang in North Korea . (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP Images) #

  29
Soldiers of the Chinese communist Eighth Route Army on the drill field at Yanan, 

capital of a huge area in North China

which is governed by the Chinese

Communist Party, seen on March 26,

1946. These soldiers are members of

the "Night Tiger" battalion. The Chinese

Communist Party (CPC) had waged war

against the ruling Kuomintang

(KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party)

since 1927, vying for control of China .

Japanese invasions during World War II

forced the two sides to put most of their

struggles aside to fight a common foreign

foe -- though they did still fight each

other from time to time.

After World War II ended, and the Soviet

Union pulled out of Manchuria, full scale

civil war erupted in China in June of 1946. The KMT eventually was defeated, with

millions retreating to Taiwan ,

as CPC leader Mao Zedong established

the People's Republic of China in 1949.

(AP Photo) #

  30
This 1946 photograph shows ENIAC

(Electronic Numerical Integrator And

Computer), the first general purpose

electronic computer - a 30-ton machine

housed at the University of Pennsylvania . Developed in secret starting in 1943,

ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery

firing tables for the United States Army's

Ballistic Research Laboratory.

The completed machine was announced

to the public on February 14, 1946.

The inventors of ENIAC promoted the

spread of the new technologies through

a series of influential lectures on the

construction of electronic digital 

computers at the University of

Pennsylvania in 1946, known as the

Moore School Lectures. (AP Photo) #