18 December 1944
Adm. Halsey’s 3rd Fleet encounters a typhoon northeast of Samar. Destroyers USS Hull (DD 350), USS Spence (DD 512), and USS Monaghan (DD 354) capsized and went down with practically all hands, while a cruiser, five aircraft carriers, and three destroyers suffered serious damage.
Approximately 790 officers and men were lost or killed, with another 80 injured.
USS Massachusetts BB-59 endured the “Halsey Typhoon” dealing with winds up to 120 MPH and near 60 foot tall waves!
@captainwalker yea pretty brutal. Not much said about it in most USA WWII books
@captainwalker My grandfather was in the US 2nd ID in the Ardennes on day one of the Bulge.
December 21 1944
Private Charles Preston, of Nicholasville, Kentucky, brushes snow from a 30-caliber machine gun mounted on his jeep.
His unit is moving against the German counterattack in the Ardennes during the ‘Battle of the Bulge’ which is barely a week old.
(Image and description courtesy of the Truman Presidential Museum and Library)
(Colourised by RJM)
Lighted MERRY XMAS sign behind 65-ft. Christmas tree lit up by Italian bulbs strung up by Special Services & the 53rd Signal Battalion at the top of Radicosa Pass at 2500 ft. elevation, note direction signs to Bologna as MP stands guard, in the Apennine Mountains Italy - December 1944
LIFE Magazine Archives - Margaret Bourke-White Photographer
@captainwalker I can’t read the name of the town to the right . Can anyone else ?
@witt I think it is Sessonoro…maybe an American spelling for Sassinoro
@captainwalker thanks , but can’t be that town as that is at least 250 miles south, near Naples . Oh well! Doesn’t matter .
Santa Claus arrives in Guadalcanal on a requisitioned Nissan sedan as his sleigh - December 1942
LIFE Magazine Archives - Ralph Morse Photographer
Ha ha anything is possible. Merry Christmas captainwalker if u celebrate it.
@general-5-stars thanks Merry Christmas to you also
1942 Santa arriving by tank instead of outdated sleigh. Sgt. Hiram Prouty playing Santa for British children. Dec 5, 1942. Perham Downs, England. M.3. Tank of 1st Tank Group. Sgt. Prouty, member of 175th Inf.
From the US Army Center for Military History
March 5, 1943: first flight of the Gloster Meteor, the Allies’ only operational jet plane during WW2, from RAF Cranwell.
@kaleu said in On this day during W.W. 2:
March 5, 1943: first flight of the Gloster Meteor, the Allies’ only operational jet plane during WW2, from RAF Cranwell.
While the Meteor was in much greater use during WW2, the P-80 Shooting Star had: “two pre-production models … see very limited service in Italy just before the end of World War II”
Wiki P-80 Shooting Star
-Midnight_Reaper
@midnight_reaper I had never heard that. Thanks
@midnight_reaper Thanks, I was not aware of that.
Supermarine Spitfire Mark Vs of No 417 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force flying over the Tunisian desert - April 1943
Original Color Picture
IWM - Royal Air Force official photographer
@captainwalker beautiful.
17 May 1944
Churchill tank crews of HQ Troop, 51st (Leeds Rifles) Royal Tank Regiment, 25th Tank Brigade, share out rations near their camouflaged vehicles before going into action in support of the 1st Canadian Division, central Italy. (
No. 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit
Johnson (Sgt)
Colourised by Richard James Molloy
