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Europe Laid Waste

Discussion in 'Post War 1945-1955' started by GRW, Feb 26, 2013.

  1. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

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    "VE Day may have been a time of global celebration at the end of the Second World War, but it also laid bare the scale of devastation across the war zone that was Europe.
    These photographs from May 1945 show how the landscape of Germany was scarred with bomb craters and ruined buildings, with huge refugee camps set up across the countryside.
    The astonishing images are the product of the Allied 'trolley missions', attempts to catalogue the damage done by British bombers over the previous six years.
    The missions were initially restricted to Allied-controlled areas, as they began before the official end of the War, but soon extended out to Eastern Europe.
    The B-17 and B-24 bombers which conducted the missions carried official photographers as well as RAF ground crew who had been instrumental in planning earlier bombing missions.
    For many of the crew it was the first time they had flown in the aircraft they had been working on for years.
    The missions were intended to allow both pilots and ground crew to survey the work they had done and take a close look at the effect of the bombing raids which had forced Germany into submission by 1945.
    Thankfully for later generations, the photographers on board took their duties seriously and captured dozens of images of German cities pocked with craters.
    The human cost of warfare is also shown by vistas of prisoner-of-war camps made up of hundreds of tents housing those who were captured while fighting."
    The world after war: Aerial photos reveal the apocalyptic devastation of Europe in weeks after VE Day | Mail Online

     

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