Free historical military photos from WWII & Vietnam
May 23rd, 2008
| Written by
Chris Willis
The Footnote scanning team has been working in the vaults of The National Archives diligently scanning the complete WWII US Air Force photo collection (officially known as “Black and White and Color Photographs of U.S. Air Force and Predecessor Agencies Activities, Facilities, and Personnel – World War II”).
There are more than 80,000 photographs of aircraft, equipment, air races, bombing tests, and military personnel grouped by regional “war theater.”
The collection is searchable and unique because you can view the entire photograph – both front and back for additional caption information. Start exploring some interesting categories such as D-Day, Battles, Maps, Charts & Drawings, Rescue and thousands more.
11 Conversations to “Free historical military photos from WWII & Vietnam”
Comments
wow! this is really a wonderful site, it is a bit slow but it just maybe my computer, i have been looking at the ww11 photos and there are alot, i wonder if there are any of my grandfather, he was a col. in the air force during the ww2 & korea he passed away in 2000, and i am sorry he never told us alot about himself he never made a big deal out of his service to our country.i have containers with pictures and information, but the amazing thing is i google his name and the information that comes up so much history! with 80,000 pic’s to look at on this site it will take some time but i am really enjoying this, thank you
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
i love those pics can you send some to me???
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:19 am
my great grandfather was a sgt and a tank driver in ww11
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:25 am
Jacob,
You can view all the photos free and download those that you are interested in.
Search them here or browse through them starting here.
Look for the “Save” button at the top of the viewer when you find one you’d like to download.
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:38 am
i AM A THREE COMBAT TOUR VIET NAM DISABLE VET. i AM TRYING TO GET MILITARY PHOTOS FROM THE VIET NAM ERA SO THAT I CAN PUT A SLIDE SHOW TOGETHER TO SHOW SCHOOL KIDS AS PART OF A PRESENTATION ABOT THE VIET NAM WAR.
JIMMIE HERMAN LT, USN RTetired
July 7th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Sounds like a great project. Hopefully our Marine Corps photos from Vietnam can help.
July 8th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Unfortunately, despite your claim that the WWII US Air Force photo collection is complete, there are at least a couple of albums missing, namely “War Theater #12 – Italy – Book #466″ and “War Theater #12 – Italy – Book #467″. These contains 155 photographs of the bombings of Italian targets in alphabetic order, From letter “A” for Alessandria to “B” for Bologna.
In fact such section starts with Bolzano bombing, and all the rest, like Alessandria, Arezzo, Bergamo, Bologna, and all in between is completely missing.
The existence of such photographs is proven by their presence in the old archival laser videodisc and their serial numbers are comprised between #24746 and #24901.
Could you please check and eventually insert them?
P.S. To verify their absence is simple: do a search with “Bombing, Arezzo” and see…
Thanks for your attention
Ferdinando D’Amico
August 28th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Thanks for bringing this up. We’ll look into it an see what we can find out.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
In February of 1996, my grandmother passed away, in going through her belongings, I found 3 photo albums of military photos from WWII. I have about 120 prints numbered and labeled with the branch of the military that they were taken from. Each print also has a typed caption that goes with each print. I don’t know if the prints are copies or real. I can tell you that I have the picture of the atomic blast on Nagasaki, Japan with the same serial numbers at the bottom as the one you have on your site. If you go to http://www.uwa.edu, you will find 49 other photos from the marine corps. I also have all 49 of those pictures, they are labeled the same way as the ones I have. If you can give me more information about the photos I would really like to learn more about them. I found the pictures on that site by googleing the name Staff Srgt. Rex Robbins, he is listed on one the captions I have in the albums. Thank you Joe Perry
September 5th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Im sorry, the pictues at the University of West Alabama are in the Julia S. Tutwieler Library in the special collections department. I spoke with the archivist, and she said that the photos they have are digitised copies, and that she would have to get in touch with the archivist that accepted the pics. and that she would get back with me. I guess I’m on a long list.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
World war 2 was a very bloody battle and one of the worlds most destrucive war in the history of man kind well not as bad as the dinosaur wars. P.S. you rock.
February 6th, 2009 at 8:47 am
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