One of my favorite things to do is to poke around the photo site Flickr. There are so many amazing old photographs there – down the rabbit hole I go. A wonderful new addition to the community is the UK’s National Archive. They are just getting started and only have about 200+ photos uploaded so far, but there is already some really great stuff in there. I pulled out a selection of favorites for your enjoyment and posted them below. If you are seeking nostalgia and inspiration, click on over. [National Archives UK on Flickr]
These are some great pictures. I love the picture of the people under the hut, the guy in the middle bleeds with style.
I like the unbounded optimism of the guy in the last photo, dragging a bicycle ashore during the D Day landings.
The final photo, the guy trying to bring his ‘bike’ ashore…..not sure that will help what was waiting on the other side of the beach!!!
Holy whale!!! That photo is unreal.
Wish that some captions had been posted for these photos … for instance, the full caption for the last photos is:
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Official D-Day Photograph. “On reaching the Normandy coast, British Commandos leave their tank landing craft, some carrying bicycles and make for the shore.”
“One of the series of film cuts from an official film of the British Commando Troops embarking for France and landing on the Normandy beachhead on D-Day.”
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So, you can draw your own conclusions as to how “authentic” the photo is …
I did a post on these paratroopers with bikes that you may find interesting.
http://selectism.com/columns/chrisbray/2009/05/25/the-bikes-of-war/
Great pictures, especially the ones with the Sikhs (2nd one). I love finding old pictures of Colonial India.
I’m kind of flabbergasted, great post!
Very cool, love the aerial bomb picture. I enjoy browsing flickr and some of the other sites as well. My most notable find was an album full of pictures of the hospital I was born at (Michael Reese, Southside Chicago) which is now defunct. Nice to see where I started my life!
There are some great photo’s here, I especially like the aerial photo of the Lancaster bombers and the whale photo is brilliant!
These are amazing photographs and a great post- thanks ACL.
My grandfather was in the 2nd Air division of the 8th Army based in Norwich, England during WW2 and gave me a few photos taken out of the bomb bay doors during missions over Germany. I’ll find them and email them to you.