'The Second World War Illustrated'

The second volume of a comprehensive collection of contemporary images

Fallschirmjager leaving a Ju 52 transport.

From Jack Holroyd’s six-volume series comes The Second World War Illustrated: The Second Year - Archive and Colour Photographs.

A very diverse collection of images from all sides of the conflict. These are organised by theatre and provide a good overview of events, mainly through the well-informed captions, but with some supporting text and diagrams. Many pictures will be familiar - as the main source material is official archives - but in each volume, quite a few interesting rarities turn up. An accessible, complete history of the war.

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A Luftwaffe bomb aimer on a Heinkel III bomber during a raid on Britain.

German Knickebein* navigation system

Attacking bombers flew a course indicated by the Approach beam the target city; three intercepting cross beams gave appropriate information and action to take:

First of the cross beams (A), code named Rhein, was transmitted from Cleve in Germany and alerted the aircraft crew that they were thirty miles from their target.

The second beam (B), code named Oder, transmitted from Julianadorp in the Netherlands, instructed the aircraft observer to press the button to start the bombing clock.

The distance to the target was now nine miles.

When the aircraft intercepted beam (C) Elbe, which originated from Bredstedt in northern Germany, the aircraft observer stopped the bombing clock; it was now just three miles to the target.

Shortly afterwards a timer made electrical contact and the bombs were released.

*Knickebein translates as crooked leg.

From the colour section of images, a wounded infantryman shortly after the German invasion of Russia in June 1941.

An NCO of the Wehrmacht is about to carry out the execution of two captured women of the Red Army. They have been taken back to the gun pit where they had been operating a machine gun from - the hole would serve as their grave. German Army guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia, issued by the OKW on 19 May 1941, directed: ruthless and vigorous measures against Bolshevik inciters, guerrillas, saboteurs, Jews, and the complete elimination of all active and passive resistance.Influenced by these guidelines, the regular armed forces, represented by the Wehrmacht, committed countless war crimes.

As many as 100 people were stuffed into each cattle truck. Many died of thirst, starvation, and suffocation aboard two trains that for eight days travelled back and forth across the countryside. The dead are being unloaded at one stop.

The Lasi pogrom was a series of actions by forces under Marshal Ion Antonescu in the Romanian city of Lasi against its Jewish community. It lasted from 29 June to 6 July 1941. According to Romanian authorities, over 13,266 people, or one third of the Jewish population, were massacred. One method of cruel killing by the Romanian authorities was by train: In the death train that left lasi for Călärasi, southern Romania, which carried perhaps as many as 5,000 Jews, only 1,011 reached their destination alive after eight days.

Hitler plots his next move with the Commander in Chief of the Wehrmacht.

© Jack Holroyd 2020, ‘The Second World War Illustrated: The Second Year - Archive and Colour Photographs of WW2’. Reproduced courtesy of Pen & Sword Publishers Ltd.

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