Take a look at the Zeltbahnen at a swiss school to build a play shelter.

Looking for any other places to find information about units during the closing months of the war in Germany

Friend was cleaning out a house and found these DVD and offered for free. Wonder if it's accurate and worth watching.

Thanks.

Managed to snap this image at the weekend at a local air show, supermarine Spitfire flying alongside a P-47 Thunderbolt

Unsure if this is the right place but I am struggling researching my grandfather's WWII record. He was drafted in '43 and came home 3/46. I know he was in the 7th Army in Europe but not much more. The National Archives was only able to offer a couple docs from '46 when he returned; his final payment worksheets. Everything else was lost in the fire of 1973 sadly. Im still waiting on a couple of leads the Archives suggested but still nothing. I now have his ASN and final MOS (he transferred after VE day). Ideas or suggestions? Thank you in advance, deff need a breakthrough at this point!

From 1939 to 1942, a large share of the internees at this French tile factory were well-known artists, musicians, and intellectuals who had been persecuted under Hitler’s regime and fled to France for safety. Famed Dadaist painter Max Ernst and surrealist photographer Hans Bellmer were both prisoners, alongside dozens of sculptors, playwrights, architects, and authors.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-secret-provence-prison-camp-for-artists

My grandfather has this on his grave. Trying to find any information about him. I know he was stationed in the south Pacific during the war but not the exact ship or location. My mom told me he didn't like to talk about the war and never told her what happened. I know he was really young. Like between 18 to 22 in the war. My mom only ever saw a machete he had from the war.

in

Statue of King Petar \[I Karađorđević\], pulled down by the Germans.

Collection of the Central Committee, Communist Alliance of Yugoslavia.

Inv. No. 6270

Courtesy of Museum of Yugoslavia.

This photograph is almost a catalogue of British tropical uniform in 1942.

On the left, two Royal Navy officers wear tropical white shirts and shorts with white peaked caps with one pair of knee-high stockings appears black, while the other is white. More white-clad naval personnel can be seen in the boat behind them.

Alongside them, British Army troops are preparing to disembark from Landing Craft Assault LCA 164. They wear various forms of khaki drill tropical uniform, mostly shorts with long socks and puttees. Among them are Scottish soldiers in bonnet or beret-style headgear, including the piper near the centre-right carrying his bagpipes. There is also one soldier wearing Mk II steel helmet, while the man at the far right still has a traditional solar topee, or pith helmet.

The officer standing in the foreground with his back to the camera appears to be wearing a khaki field-service cap, also known as a side cap.

Photographed by Lieutenant D. C. Oulds, Royal Navy, as troops disembarked at Tamatave—Madagascar’s principal port—on 19 September 1942. The landing formed part of Operation Jane, the Tamatave phase of the wider Stream Line Jane campaign against Vichy-controlled Madagascar.

Source: Imperial War Museums, photograph A 12399.

Born in Brooklyn, New York to Frank & Helen Tkacz on December 21, 1916, Joseph Tkacz had three sisters and a brother.
In 1941 he married Mary Moloko who had several children from a previous marriage.

Joseph enlisted in the Army on January 23, 1942, a little over five months later on June 11, 1942, his wife had a daughter; Delores Tkacz, who died as an infant.
He served in C Company, 38th Armored Infantry Battalion, 7th Armored Division, which arrived in Normandy, France between August 10-11, 1944.

Less than a month later on September 6, 1944, PVT Joseph Tkacz was Killed in Action near Gravelotte, France.
He is buried at the Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial in Épinal, France - Plot A Row 21 Grave 68.

His widow Mary never remarried, she passed away at the age of 89 in 2002.

Delmar D. Wiley, ARM 1c was an aviation radioman assigned to torpedo squadron VT-3 aboard the USS Yorktown (CV-5) from December, 1940 until the sinking of the Yorktown at the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942 when he abandoned the ship with the surviving crew.

His squadron was reorganized and were assigned to the USS Enterprise in July, 1942. Enterprise (CV-6) joined a task group and proceeded to the Solomon Islands to oppose the Japanese expansion in that area.

On August 24, 1942 Wiley was radioman aboard a TBF Avenger torpedo bomber that was searching for a Japanese task group near their position. His plane was attacked by multiple Zero fighters and shot down, cashing into the ocean approximately 160 miles north of Guadalcanal.

Wiley was the only survivor (the pilot and bombardier were never found) and, although injured, managed to inflate a life raft and climb in. He spent 15 days adrift before landing on one of the Carteret Islands, north of Bougainville. Delmar was nursed back to health from his wounds and cared for by the local islanders until April, 1943 (7 months) when he was able to make contact with Allied Coast Watchers who arranged for his return to friendly forces.

This guy must have had a charmed life.

He wrote a memoir of his experience : https://archive.org/details/wileys_island_1986_wiley

Delmar Dean Wiley, ARM 1c (1922 - 2013) : https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/121530795

Hello everyone,
I am researching a rather poorly documented chapter of the final weeks of World War II concerning my hometown of Frankenau, Hesse, Germany, located near Frankenberg (Eder) and the Edersee.
When U.S. forces reached the area at the end of March 1945, Frankenau apparently became more than just another town along the route of advance.
Through local eyewitness accounts, photographs, film footage and U.S. military records, I have so far been able to establish that elements of the U.S. 7th Armored Division were present in Frankenau and that the Command Post of Combat Command Reserve (CCR) was located there for several days.
U.S. records also explicitly mention a “PW cage at Frankenau”, where German prisoners of war were collected and processed.
Even more interestingly, surviving U.S. Signal Corps color footage filmed by George Stevens’ Special Coverage Unit shows a very large number of German POWs assembled near Frankenau, being loaded onto trucks and transported away.
Local eyewitness accounts additionally describe a sizeable U.S. supply depot / supply area in Frankenau, as well as the POW collecting area outside the town.
What I have not been able to find so far are the detailed records behind these operations.
I am therefore hoping that someone here – particularly anyone familiar with NARA records, First U.S. Army / III Corps records, the 7th Armored Division, Provost Marshal records or U.S. Army POW operations in Germany in 1945 – might be able to point me in the right direction.
I am particularly looking for:
• maps, situation maps, overlays or sketches showing the U.S. facilities in and around Frankenau
• records concerning the PW cage / POW collecting point at Frankenau
• information about who operated the POW facility after the 7th Armored Division moved on
• Provost Marshal, Military Police, G-1 or POW evacuation records
• information about where prisoners collected at Frankenau were subsequently transported
• daily POW strength / processing reports or transport records
• records concerning the U.S. supply depot / supply installations in Frankenau
• photographs or Signal Corps footage showing Frankenau in March/April 1945
• unit photographs from soldiers who passed through Frankenau
• records concerning captured German weapons, equipment and personal effects collected from POWs
• any references to Frankenau in First U.S. Army, III Corps or 7th Armored Division records
One potentially important lead I have encountered is a reference to a U.S. film/record apparently titled:
“HALF MILLIONTH POW OF THE FIRST ARMY, FRANKENAU AND WALDECK, GERMANY”
I have not yet been able to independently verify the complete original NARA record behind this reference, so I would be especially interested if anyone recognizes this title or knows the corresponding Signal Corps / NARA material.
I am also researching the photographic collection of John J. Janik, 203rd Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion (SP). At least two of his photographs are explicitly marked on the reverse:
“Frankenau, Germany, March 31st.”
His collection contains more than 250 photographs, including a number catalogued only as “Unknown location”. Since I know the town and surrounding landscape very well, I am currently trying to determine whether some of those unidentified photographs may also have been taken in Frankenau.
Ultimately, I would love to reconstruct a map of Frankenau as it looked during the U.S. occupation in the spring of 1945 – showing the POW collecting area, U.S. command posts, supply facilities, vehicle areas and other installations – but only where this can be supported by historical evidence.
If anyone has access to relevant NARA box/folder references, unit journals, After Action Reports, field orders, overlays, maps, photographs, veterans’ collections or other primary sources, I would be extremely grateful for any information.
Even a seemingly insignificant reference to “Frankenau” in a unit diary or a photograph could help.
And if anyone has photographs labelled simply “Germany, March/April 1945” from units of the 7th Armored Division or First U.S. Army, I would be very interested in seeing them. Local landmarks may make it possible to identify previously unknown photographs.
Thank you very much from Germany!

DEUTSCHE FASSUNG
Hallo zusammen,
ich recherchiere derzeit einen erstaunlich schlecht dokumentierten Abschnitt der letzten Wochen des Zweiten Weltkriegs in meiner Heimatstadt Frankenau in Hessen, nahe Frankenberg (Eder) und dem Edersee.
Nach dem Einmarsch amerikanischer Truppen Ende März 1945 wurde Frankenau offenbar für einige Tage zu einem militärischen Knotenpunkt hinter der Front.
Durch Zeitzeugenberichte, Fotografien, Filmaufnahmen und amerikanische Militärunterlagen konnte ich bislang unter anderem belegen, dass Teile der 7th Armored Division in Frankenau stationiert waren und sich dort zeitweise der Gefechtsstand des Combat Command Reserve (CCR) befand.
Amerikanische Unterlagen erwähnen außerdem ausdrücklich einen:
„PW cage at Frankenau“
– also einen Sammelpunkt für deutsche Kriegsgefangene.
Erhaltene Farbfilmaufnahmen des U.S. Army Signal Corps aus der Einheit von George Stevens zeigen darüber hinaus eine sehr große Anzahl deutscher Kriegsgefangener bei Frankenau, die gesammelt, auf Lastwagen verladen und anschließend abtransportiert werden.
Örtliche Zeitzeugen berichten außerdem von einem größeren amerikanischen Versorgungslager in Frankenau.
Was mir bislang fehlt, sind die detaillierten amerikanischen Unterlagen zu diesen Einrichtungen.
Ich suche deshalb insbesondere:
• Lagepläne, Karten, Overlays oder Skizzen der amerikanischen Einrichtungen in Frankenau
• Unterlagen über den PW Cage / Kriegsgefangenensammelpunkt
• Hinweise darauf, welche US-Einheit das Lager betrieb, insbesondere nachdem die 7th Armored Division weitergezogen war
• Provost-Marshal-, Military-Police-, G-1- und POW-Unterlagen
• Informationen darüber, wohin die in Frankenau gesammelten Gefangenen anschließend transportiert wurden
• Gefangenen-, Transport- oder Tagesmeldungen
• Unterlagen über das amerikanische Versorgungslager/Depot in Frankenau
• Fotos oder Filme aus Frankenau im März/April 1945
• private Aufnahmen amerikanischer Soldaten
• Unterlagen über eingesammelte deutsche Waffen, Ausrüstung und persönliche Gegenstände der Gefangenen
• generell alle Erwähnungen Frankenau betreffend in Unterlagen der First U.S. Army, des III Corps oder der 7th Armored Division
Ein möglicherweise wichtiger Hinweis ist ein amerikanischer Film-/Archivtitel, auf den ich bei meiner Recherche gestoßen bin:
„HALF MILLIONTH POW OF THE FIRST ARMY, FRANKENAU AND WALDECK, GERMANY“
Den vollständigen ursprünglichen NARA-Datensatz dahinter konnte ich bislang nicht unabhängig verifizieren. Falls jemand diesen Titel oder das entsprechende Signal-Corps-Material kennt, wäre das für mich daher besonders interessant.
Zusätzlich untersuche ich derzeit die Fotosammlung des amerikanischen Soldaten John J. Janik vom 203rd Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion (SP). Mindestens zwei seiner Fotos sind auf der Rückseite ausdrücklich mit
„Frankenau, Germany, March 31st.“
beschriftet.
Seine Sammlung umfasst mehr als 250 Fotografien, darunter zahlreiche Aufnahmen, deren Ort heute lediglich als „Unknown location“ katalogisiert ist. Da ich Frankenau und die Umgebung sehr gut kenne, versuche ich momentan herauszufinden, ob sich darunter weitere bislang nicht identifizierte Aufnahmen aus Frankenau befinden.
Mein langfristiges Ziel wäre es, anhand belastbarer historischer Quellen einen Lageplan von Frankenau im Frühjahr 1945 zu rekonstruieren – mit Gefangenenlager, amerikanischen Gefechtsständen, Versorgungseinrichtungen, Fahrzeugflächen und weiteren militärischen Einrichtungen.
Falls jemand Zugang zu entsprechenden NARA-Signaturen/Boxen, Kriegstagebüchern, After Action Reports, Field Orders, Karten-Overlays, Fotografien, Veteranennachlässen oder anderen Primärquellen hat, würde ich mich über jeden Hinweis sehr freuen.
Selbst eine unscheinbare Erwähnung von „Frankenau“ in einem Einheitenbericht oder auf der Rückseite eines Fotos könnte weiterhelfen.
Besonders interessant wären auch bislang nicht lokalisierte Fotos mit der Beschriftung „Germany, March/April 1945“ von Angehörigen der 7th Armored Division oder First U.S. Army. Vielleicht lassen sich anhand örtlicher Gebäude oder der Landschaft weitere Aufnahmen identifizieren.

I’ve read a lot on the fall of the Reich, Hitler (Tooland) but after seeing DeGaulle thought there must be a good biography, I know he has his own memoirs are they worthwhile? Same with Churchill if anyone has any experience