World War II stands as a defining chapter in history, igniting with Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, under the ruthless leadership of Adolf Hitler.
This bold move jolted Britain and France into action, declaring war on Germany just two days later. The colossal conflict turned into the deadliest war ever witnessed as it engulfed over 30 nations with a staggering toll of more than 50 million lives.
Amidst the chaos, photographers bravely positioned themselves on the front lines, documenting both the triumphant highs and the harrowing lows.
Let’s delve into some of the most unforgettable photos from World War II, each telling its own powerful story.
1. Children of an eastern suburb of London made homeless during the Battle of Britain, September 1940
2. German soldiers in Paris salute their officers sitting at a café, Bastille Day, 1940
3. The Miracle at Dunkirk, 1940
In May 1940, German soldiers launched a rapid and intense attack, known as a blitzkrieg, through Belgium and Northern France. This assault cut off all communication and transport for the Allied forces, leaving thousands of troops stranded.
In response, Operation Dynamo was initiated to evacuate the Allied soldiers trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, France. Soldiers waded through the water, desperate to board any rescue vessels available—whether military ships or civilian boats.
Over 338,000 soldiers were successfully evacuated in what came to be known as the “Miracle of Dunkirk.”
4. A Frenchman weeps as German soldiers march into the French capital, Paris, June 14, 1940
5. St. Paul’s Cathedral is pictured during the great fire raid of Sunday, December 29th, 1940, during the Battle of Britain, in London
6. Adolf Hitler in Paris, June 23, 1940
7. The forward superstructure of the sunken battleship USS Arizona burns after the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941
8. A captured photograph taken aboard a Japanese carrier before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941
9. Flak bursts of anti-aircraft shells pepper the skyline above rising smoke from the battleship USS Arizona during the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941
10. German troops in Russia, 1941
11. The battleship USS Arizona burns on Battleship Row, beside Ford Island, in an aerial photo taken from a Japanese aircraft during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, U.S. December 7, 1941
Ships seen are (L-R) USS Nevada, USS Arizona with USS Vestal moored outboard, USS Tennessee with USS West Virginia moored outboard, and USS Maryland with USS Oklahoma capsized alongside
12. Firefighters put out a fire during the Blitz, London, 1941
13. USS Shaw explodes during the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941
14. Heinrich Himmler visits Dachau with his 12-year-old daughter Gudrun, 1941
15. The “Night Witches,” fearless Russian female pilots who ran bombing missions at night, 1941
16. Women in the workforce
As the United States entered the war, millions of men enlisted, leaving behind countless civilian and military jobs. Women stepped up to fill these roles, taking over assembly lines, factories, and defense plants.
This shift in the workforce led to the creation of iconic images like Rosie the Riveter, symbolizing strength, patriotism, and women’s liberation. Women also made significant contributions abroad, with some taking on prominent roles in war journalism.
One notable figure was photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White, one of the first four photographers hired by Life Magazine. She made history as the first female war correspondent and the first woman permitted to work in combat zones during the war.
17. Prisoners of war have their hands tied behind their backs during the March of Death from Bataan to the Cabanatuan prison camp, in the Philippines, May 1942
18. The Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryu burns before sinking during the Battle of Midway June 5, 1942
19. A torpedoed Japanese destroyer photographed through the periscope of the U.S.S. Wahoo or U.S.S. Nautilus, June 1942
20. A family of Japanese-Americans is forcibly relocated to an internment camp, 1942
21. Japanese soldiers in Burma pose in front of a giant statue of Buddha, 1942
22. The citizens of Leningrad evacuate their homes, which had been destroyed by German bombing, 1942
23. Tuskegee Airmen, 1942
In 1942, Life Magazine photographer Gabriel Benzur captured this image of cadets training for the U.S. Army Air Corps.
These cadets would later become the renowned Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military aviators who played a crucial role in pushing for the integration of the U.S. armed forces.
Despite the persistence of racial segregation in the military at the time, there was a widespread belief that Black soldiers were not capable of flying and operating military aircraft.
However, as the U.S. deepened its involvement in World War II, civilian pilot training programs expanded nationwide, necessitating the inclusion of Black pilots.
24. Jewish civilians are led down a street by German soldiers during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland, 1943
25. U.S. Coast Guardsmen on the deck of the Cutter Spencer watch the explosion of a depth charge while providing convoy protection from Nazi U-boats, April 17, 1943
26. A U.S. B-17 Flying Fortress of the 8th AAF Bomber Command attacked a ball-bearing plant and the nearby Hispano Suiza aircraft engine repair depot in Paris, France, in December 1943
27. A Russian conscript says goodbye to his family before being sent to the front lines, Karachev, Bryansk, Russia, 1943
28. The Warsaw Ghettos, 1943
Following Hitler’s invasion of Poland, over 400,000 Jewish Poles were forced into a cramped area within Warsaw, the capital city. By the end of 1940, this ghetto was sealed off with brick walls, barbed wire, and armed guards, mirroring the establishment of other Jewish ghettos across Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.
In April 1943, the residents of the Warsaw ghetto launched a courageous revolt to avoid deportation to extermination camps. They managed to resist the Nazis for an astonishing four weeks.
Ultimately, however, Nazi forces destroyed many of the bunkers where residents were hiding, nearly 7,000 people died. The remaining 50,000 ghetto captives, including those in this photograph, were sent to labor and extermination camps.
This image was discovered among others in SS General Stroop’s report titled, “The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is No More!”
29. Soldiers of the Red Army march through the main street of Kiev, Ukraine, after the city is liberated from German forces in 1943.
30. A German bomber attacks the American ship Robert Rowan off the coast of Gela, Sicily, causing it to explode on July 11, 1943.
31. Human remains at Majdanek
The photographs from Nazi-led concentration camps during World War II are among the most harrowing images ever captured. They vividly depict the horrors of the Holocaust, including families being torn apart and the skeletal remains of those imprisoned.
This 1944 photograph starkly displays a pile of bones at Majdanek, the second-largest death camp in Poland, following Auschwitz. These images serve as a haunting reminder of the atrocities committed and the unimaginable suffering endured by countless victims.
32. U.S. troops wade ashore from a Coast Guard landing craft at Omaha Beach during the Normandy D-Day landings near Vierville sur Mer, France, June 6, 1944
This powerful photograph, titled “Taxis to Hell- and Back- Into the Jaws of Death,” was taken on June 6, 1944, during Operation Overlord by Robert F. Sargent, a United States Coast Guard chief petty officer and photographer’s mate. The original caption read:
“American invaders spring from the ramp of a Coast Guard-manned landing barge to wade those last perilous yards to the beach of Normandy. Enemy fire will cut some of them down. Their ‘taxi’ will pull itself off the sands and dash back to a Coast Guard-manned transport for more passengers.”
The D-Day invasion was a massive and coordinated military effort aimed at ending World War II. Today, it is celebrated by historians as one of the greatest military achievements in history.
33. American assault troops of the 16th Infantry Regiment, injured while storming Omaha Beach, wait for evacuation to a field hospital for further medical treatment at Collville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, June 6, 1944
34. A soldier of a U.S. Marine patrol on Saipan finds a Japanese family hiding in a hillside cave during fighting on Saipan, June 21, 1944
35. A jeep of a U.S. Army combat engineers unit drives past the destroyed Saint Malo church (at rear) following the D-Day landings operation in Valognes, France, June 24, 1944
36. U.S. troops of the 28th Infantry Division march down the Champs Elysees in Paris after capturing the city from the Germans August 29, 1944
37. A general view of Omaha Beach secured after D-Day, June 1944
38. A procession of German prisoners captured by U.S. soldiers during the taking of Aachen march through the streets of the ruined city, in Aachen, Germany, October 1944
39. A woman’s head is shaved as punishment for “collaboration horizontale,” following the retreat of German forces from the Montelimar area of France, August 29, 1944
40. U.S. soldiers of the 347th Infantry Regiment are served food on their way to La Roche, Belgium, January 13, 1945
41. A U.S. Marine flame thrower operator in action, covered by a pair of riflemen, on Iwo Jima, February 1945
42. Pilots aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier receive last-minute instructions before taking off to attack industrial and military installations in Tokyo February 17, 1945
43. Wounded are transferred from the USS Bunker Hill to the USS Wilkes Barre following a Japanese attack off Okinawa May 11, 1945
44. A German woman is overcome as she walks past the exhumed bodies of some 800 slave workers murdered by SS guards near Namering, Germany, May 17, 1945
45. U.S. Marines raise the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, 1945
46. Wrecked U.S. Marine vehicles litter an Iwo Jima beach, 1945
47. Three Japanese soldiers emerge from their hiding place to surrender during mopping up operations by the U.S. Army on Iwo Jima, April 5, 1945
48. A dead German general who committed suicide lies on the floor of city hall in Leipzig, Germany, after U.S. troops captured the city, April 19, 1945
49. U.S. soldiers of the 55th Armored Infantry Battalion and tank of the 22nd Tank Battalion move through a smoke-filled street in Wernberg, Germany, April 22, 1945
50. The USS Bunker Hill after being hit by two kamikazes within 30 seconds off Kyushu, May 1945
51. Gunners of the 12th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, with the Victory issue of the Maple Leaf newspaper, in Aurich, Germany, May 20, 1945
52. Jewish children on their way to Palestine after having been released from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, June 5, 1945
The girl on the left is from Poland, the boy in the center is from Latvia, and the girl on the right is from Hungary
53. Smoke rises more than 60,000 feet into the air over Nagasaki, Japan, from an atomic bomb, the second ever used in warfare, dropped from a B-29 Superfortress bomber on August 9, 1945
54. Devastation is seen in the vicinity of ‘ground zero’ after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, 1945
55. Japanese officials attend a formal ceremony of surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan, September 2, 1945
Japanese representatives include Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff
56. U.S. F4U and F6F planes fly in formation during surrender ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri, off Japan, September 2, 1945
57. G.I.’s celebrate the surrender of Japan with a special edition of the Paris Post, in Paris, France, August 10, 1945
58. Gaunt allied prisoners of war cheer rescuers from the U.S. Navy at Aomori camp near Yokohama, Japan, August 29, 1945
59. People in New York City’s Times Square kiss while celebrating the surrender of Japan, August 14, 1945
60. Japanese civilians listening to Emperor Hirohito surrender over the radio in 1945
