Serbian and Montenegrin partisans of the 3rd Company of the 5th Battalion, 4th Montenegrin Proletarian Brigade pose for a group photograph in Trstenik. Part of the larger National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, the partisans not only had to contend with the Axis occupation, but with a myriad of ethnic nationalist and ideological factions within Yugoslavia as well, such as the collaborationist Serbian Volunteer Corps and the Slovene Home Guard, the monarchist, nationalist Serbian Chetnik movement and the ultra-nationalist, fascist Croatian Ustaše organization. Trstenik, Rasina District, Serbia, Yugoslavia. October 1944.

A group of emaciated former inmates at Ebensee concentration camp (part of the larger Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp network) prepare a meal on an open fire following the camp’s liberation by the U.S. Army’s 80th Division. The construction of the Ebensee subcamp began late in 1943, and the first 1,000 prisoners arrived on 18 November 1943, from the main camp of Mauthausen and its subcamps. The main purpose of Ebensee was to provide slave labor for the construction of enormous underground tunnels in which armament works were to be housed. Approximately 20,000 inmates were worked to death constructing giant tunnels in the surrounding mountains. Together with the Mauthausen subcamp of Gusen, Ebensee is considered one of the most brutal Nazi concentration camps. Ebensee concentration camp, near Ebensee, Upper Austria, Austria. May 1945.

Soviet machine gunners take up positions on the banks of the Dnieper river during the Battle of the Dnieper. The battle took place between 24 August 1943 and 24 December 1943 and was one of the largest operations during the war, involving almost 4,000,000 troops on both sides and stretching on a 1,400 km (870 mi) long front. During its four-month duration, the eastern bank of the Dnieper was recovered from Axis forces by five of the Soviet Army’s fronts, which conducted several assault river crossings to establish several bridgeheads on the western bank. Subsequently, Kiev was liberated in the following Battle of Kiev. One of the costliest operations of the war, the Battle of the Dnieper casualties are estimated at being from 1,700,000 to 2,700,000 on both sides. Kiev Oblast, Ukraine, Soviet Union. September 1943. Image taken by Simon Friedland.

Members of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, a local auxiliary militia force funded and administered by the colonial Government of Hong Kong, are photographed just before the fall of Hong Kong to the Japanese. Hours after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Kaneohe Naval Air Station in Hawaii, Japanese troops attacked Hong Kong from the north and the Battle of Hong Kong began on 8 December 1941. Despite efforts by British and Commonwealth troops to repel the Japanese, the colony surrendered on Christmas day. Japan would occupy Hong Kong for three years and eight months, until the unconditional surrender of Japan on 15 August 1945, and the handover of Hong Kong to the British Royal Navy on 30 August 1945. British Hong Kong (now, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China). December 1941.  

French Colonial North African soldiers are gathered at a POW collection area in Amiens. The town was captured by the German Werhmacht’s 1st Panzer Division on 20 May 1940, following two days of heavy aerial assaults. On 22 June 1940, an armistice was signed between France and Germany, ending the one month and 15 day Battle of France. The cease-fire went into effect on 25 June 1940. Germany would occupy the north and west of France, Italy would control a small occupation zone in the southeast, and an unoccupied zone, the zone libre, would be governed by the newly formed collaborationist Vichy government in central and southern France. Amiens, Somme, Picardy, France. June 1940.

U.S. Marines play a game of volleyball on Eniwetok Atoll following the capture of the Pacific atoll from the Japanese. The Battle of Eniwetok took place from 17 February 1944 to 23 February 1944 and followed the  U.S. success in the Battle of Kwajalein to the southeast. Capture of Eniwetok would provide an airfield and harbor to support attacks on Japanese positions in the Mariana Islands to the northwest. American losses in the battle were relatively small, with approximately 313 killed in action, 77 missing and 879 wounded. By contrast, 3,380 Japanese soldiers were killed trying to defend the atoll. Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands. 8 August 1944.

Polish insurgents of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) are photographed in Warsaw’s Tadeusza Czackiego street during the Warsaw Uprising. One partisan (center) carries a captured WWI-era German 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 08/15 machine gun, whilst his comrade (right) carries a Soviet-made RM-38 50 mm light infantry mortar. The Warsaw Uprising was the largest single military effort taken by any European resistance movement during the war. It began on 1 August 1944, as part of a nationwide plan, Operation Tempest. The main Polish objectives were to drive the German occupiers from the city and help with the larger fight against Germany and the Axis Powers. The Uprising was timed to coincide with the Soviet Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces. However, the Soviet advance stopped short and the Germans were able to regroup and defeat the Poles and demolish the city. The Polish insurgents had fought for 63 days with virtually no Allied support. Between 150,000 and 200,00 residents of Warsaw were killed during the Uprising, with another 700,000 civilians expelled from the city following hostilities. Warsaw, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland. 24 August 1944.

German Werhmacht soldiers pose with a captured French Gnome et Rhône AX2 motorcycle with sidecar, taken from the Soviets during the Battle of Belgorod. Belgorod Oblast, Russia, Soviet Union. July 1943. Image taken by Franz Grasser.

French Resistance members held as inmates at Dachau concentration camp are photographed on the day elements of the 42nd Infantry “Rainbow” Division of the United States Army National Guard secured the main camp, liberating some 30,000 inmates. Dachau was the first of the Nazi concentration camps, opened in 1933 under the direction of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Initially intended to hold only political prisoners, the camp was later enlarged to include the imprisonment of Jews, ordinary German and Austrian criminals, clergy, homosexuals and other “undesirables”, and eventually foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps located throughout southern Germany and Austria. Dachau concentration camp, near Dachau, Bavaria, Germany. 29 April 1945. 

Italian refugees are brought to the town of Sora, Italy, during the Italian Campaign from heavily shelled areas in an ambulance jeep driven by C. P. Kerrisk of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Sora, Lazio, Frosinone, Italy. 3 June 1944. Image taken by George Frederick Kaye.

Greek pilots of No. 335 (Hellenic) Squadron RAF pose in front of one of their recently-received Hawker Hurricane Mark IICs. After the fall of Greece in 1941 to the Axis, elements of the Greek armed forces managed to escape to the British-controlled Middle East and Cyprus. There they were placed under the royal government-in-exile, and continued the fight alongside the Allies. The few Air Force personnel that managed to escape eventually constituted the 13th Light Bomber and 335th and 336th Fighter squadrons, operating under the Desert Air Force in North Africa and Italy. Dekheila, Alexandria Governate, Egypt. May 1942. 

Easter at the Eastern Front. A soldier in the German Army holds a painted Stahlhelm filled Easter eggs and a photograph or postcard of festive Osterhasen (Easter bunnies). His lack of insignia and collar tabs suggest that he might possibly be a foreign volunteer for the Waffen-SS, or a Volksdeutscher;  an ethnic German volunteer or conscript from outside of the Reich. Eastern Front. circa April 1942.  Image taken by W. Wanderer.

A German Gebirgsjäger (light infantry alpine or mountain troops) of the 137th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Mountain Division (2. Gebirgs-Division) with an MG 34 machine gun sits in  position in the forest of Norway’s Junkerdal National Park during Operation Weserübung; Germany’s invasion of Norway. Junkerdal National Park, Nordland, Norway. May 1940. Image taken by Karl Marth.  

Filipino civilians walk through the smoldering rubble of the town of Dulag. The landing of the U.S forces during the Battle of Leyte took a heavy toll on the municipality, as American forces shelled Japanese positions, trying to capture a vital airstrip in nearby Barangay Rawis. Dulag, Leyte, Eastern Visayas, Philippines. 29 October 1944.

Four Polish insurgents of the Polish Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa) who were captured by Germans after the failed Warsaw Uprising are photographed through barbed wire at Stalag VI-C POW camp after their liberation. Following the German suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, Stalag VI-C became the only POW camp in Nazi-occupied Europe which held female combatants as prisoners of war and not merely as inmates. The camp was finally liberated on 12 April 1945 by the Polish 1st Armoured Division (1 Dywizja Pancerna). Stalag VI-C, near Oberlangen, Lower Saxony, Germany. April 1945.