World War II Photos
This is a representative sampling of photographs from World War II that can be found in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration. For more information on materials from World War II visit our World War II Records page.
Many images and other records can be located online in our National Archives Catalog.
For additional select images of WWII, see:
- Pictures of World War II, Select List
- Pictures of African Americans during World War II, Select List
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Hitler accepts the ovation of the Reichstag after announcing the `peaceful acquisition of Austria. It set the stage to annex the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland, largely inhabited by a German- speaking population. Berlin, March 1938. 208-N-39843.
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A Frenchman weeps as German soldiers march into the French capital, Paris, on June 14, 1940, after the Allied armies had been driven back across France. 208-PP-10A-3.
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the Declaration of War against Japan, December 8, 1941. 79-AR-82.
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Stars over Berlin and Tokyo will soon replace these factory lights reflected in the noses of planes at Douglas Aircraft s Long Beach, Calif., plant. Women workers groom lines of transparent noses for deadly A-20 attack bombers. Alfred Palmer, October 1942. 208-AA-352QQ-5.
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Howard A. Wooten. Graduated December 1944 from Air Corps School, Tuskegee, AL. Ca. December 1944. 18-T-44-K-17.
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Back to a Coast Guard assault transport comes this Marine after two days and nights of Hell on the beach of Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. His face is grimey with coral dust but the light of battle stays in his eyes. February 1944. 26-G-3394.
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Landing on the coast of France under heavy Nazi machine gun fire are these American soldiers, shown just as they left the ramp of a Coast Guard landing boat. CPhoM. Robert F. Sargent, June 6, 1944. 26-G-2343.
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Nurses of a field hospital who arrived in France via England and Egypt after three years service. Parker, August 12, 1944. 112-SGA-44-10842.
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Cpl. Carlton Chapman...is a machine-gunner in an M-4 tank, attached to a Motor Transport unit near Nancy, France. 761st Mt. Bn. November 5, 1944. Ryan. 111-SC-196106-S.
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Standing in the grassy sod bordering row upon row of white crosses in an American cemetery, two dungaree-clad Coast Guardsmen pay silent homage to the memory of a fellow Coast Guardsman who lost his life in action in the Ryukyu Islands. Benrud, ca. 1945. 26-G-4739.
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Pfc Angelo B. Reina, 391st Inf. Regt., guards a lonely Oahu beach position. Kahuku, Oahu. Rosenberg, Hawaii, March 1945. 111-SC-221867.
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Col. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., pilot of the ENOLA GAY, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, waves from his cockpit before the takeoff, 6 August 1945. 208-LU-13H-5.
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New York City celebrating the surrender of Japan. They threw anything and kissed anybody in Times Square. Lt. Victor Jorgensen, August 14, 1945. 80-G-377094.
What are people asking on History Hub about World War II records?
- RE: WWII Service Records
- RE: I would like the movement activities of the Co B 202nd Engr C BN in WWII during their time in France and Normandy. I would also to know the campaigns they engaged.
- RE: I hope to trace my dad's path in the 538th Ordnance, Heavy Maintenance (Tank) Co., during the 1944 invasion of Europe in WWII. They landed on Utah Beach, but what followed?
- RE: USS OAHU fate on May 1942.
- RE: How do I find my grandfather’s WWII military records? His name is Severo Hernandez.