European Theater of Operations
Buchenwald Concentration Camp Wiemar, Germany April 1945
Group photo of members of the 312th Depot Repair
Squadron, 41st Air Depot Group, 15th Airforce, Italy 1944
(Photo courtesy of Ernest Balajthy propeller mechanic in the 312th)
http://forum.armyairforces.com/photo.aspx?&albumID=434&page=1
GI and his bride in the back of a command car.
France, 1945
A general and colonel shake hands after
the liberation of lower Normandy, France 1944
Bulldozers clear paths through St. Lo so that vehicles can head to the front.
July, 1944
Taking La Haye du Puits Normandy, France July 3rd, 1944
Soldier on right is carrying a Browning B.A.R.
Command car driving under the Portoni della Bra which was erected in 1480.
Verona Italy, 1944
A command car enters Stammlager 12A prison
camp shortly after it's liberation.
Limburg, Germany 1945.
German prisoners being marched through Cherbourg, France 1944
Command car and a jeep of the First Army
Gressnach, Germany November 30, 1944
Allied troops arrive at Piazza di San Pietro
(Saint Peters Square) Rome. June 1944.
Command car of the 299th Combat Engineer Battalion
pulling a mobile command post which was salvaged
from a glider from D-Day.
http://www.299thcombatengineers.com
(Photo provided by Michael S. Bunting, Comander "C" Co. 299th Engineers)
Command Car of the 12th Airforce somewhere in Corsica.
Picture taken some time between 1944-45.
Photos courtesy of Frank Florianz
http://viewoftheblue.com/photography/
Drive towards Rome Italy May 23rd, 1944
(Life Magazine Archives)
Command car of 5th Army. Italy, 1943
Augsbach, Germany June 10, 1945
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bernard Montgomery, and Air Marshall Sir Arthur
Tedder overlooking an artillery problem. France 1944
(Photo courtesy of Life Magazine)
U.S. Army Engineers Unit - Italy 1944
(Photo courtesy of Life Magazine)
Liberation of Paris August 1944 (command car lower Left)
(Photo courtesy of Life Magazine)
Liberation of Paris 1944
(Photo courtesy of Life Magazine)
February 1945, German prisoners are led in command car
towards the HQ of the French Expeditionary Forces
6th RTM, to be questioned there.
The 2nd & 6th RTM (Moroccan Infantry Regiments) were redesignated,
after their heavy combat losses, as the 2nd & 6th
Regiments Mixtes de Tirailleurs Marocains et Algerians.
Later, in August 1944, they were renamed 1st
Regiments de Tirailleurs Algeriens and 6th RTM.
Command car casualty location unknown.
Command cars outside a field hospital at Liblar Germany, 1945
Photo taken by Sergeant Walter Schreck of the
36th Combat Infantry Battalion, 3rd Armored Division.
1st Armored Signal Battalion receives
mess in Caltanissetta, Italy
July / August, 1943
Photo courtesy of Timothy Shanteler
Floodwaters from the Meuse river in Nomur,
Belgium January 1945 during the Battle
of the Bulge after the snow melted.
(Photo courtesy of Michael Haines)
Two German officer POWs seated in a command car.
Photo unknown
ETO HQ. Jan
7th 1946. With the thawing of the snow in the vicinity of
Clervaux
,
Luxembourg.
All white camouflage paint has to be removed from
U.S.
vehicles.
PFC Donald Townsend, Port Jefferson Station, Long island, NY is doing the job
on this command car. A Btry. 731st F.A. Bn. 17th A/b Div.
Photo courtesy of Michael Haines
Checkerboard command car used by the 338 Bomb Squadron - 96th Bomb Group
Snetterton Heath, England - June 1943 to December 1945
134th Infantry Regiment
"All Hell Can't Stop Us"
Sgt. Charles R. Woodfall, 35th Signal Company, in front of a
command car that was the Radio Station used to connect
HQ 134 to the Division HQ. "The Captain of the HQ Company
kinda liked our Command car, and would ride with us during
our race across France with Patton."
http://www.coulthart.com/134/index.htm
Picture was taken in Poltava Russia Between June 3
and June 8, 1944 during the 15th Air Force landing of
the 1st Shuttle Raid to Russia (Operation Frantic Joe).
This command car is pulling a Class 1010 crash fire trailer.
Photo courtesy of Bill Wolf who's father participated
in this mission as a B-17 pilot. Bill has an excellent
website dedicated to the GMC CCKW .
Merrill Boyce sent in this picture of a WC-57 wreck.
Location is somewhere in southern Italy not far
from
Maglie, in the heel.
Command Car from the 36th Infantry Division driving through
thick mud in November of 1943 in the Mignano, Italy - San Pietro sector.
[Texas Military Forces Museum photo]
http://www.kwanah.com/txmilmus/index.htm
General Omar Bradley, General Dwight
Eisenhower,
and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, visited
the
2nd Armored Division at Tidworth, England.
[Photo taken from the book "Breakout At Normandy-The
Second
Armored Division in the Land of the Dead" written by Mark
Bando ( page 12,1999, MBI Publishing Company, Osceola, WI) ]
Clouds of smoke pour out over the Unter Den Linden
in Berlin after Russian workers set off dynamite
charges to destroy the wreckage of the Adlon
Hotel on August 22, 1945. Command Car in foreground.
[Photo by Charles Haacker, Acme War Correspondant]
Various army vehicles including command cars
being unloaded off an LST in Normandy, France.
[National Archives photo courtesy of John Varner]
General George C. Marshall lands in Normandy!
[National Archives photo courtesy of John Varner]
GIs enjoying the view of Mont St. Michel.
Mont St. Michel is on the north coast of France, near the
border of Brittany and Normandy. St. Michael is a
surety for freedom and thus this sanctuary also
became a symbol of the allied landing in Normandy
during the Second World War.
[National Archives photo courtesy of John Varner]
GI and command car posing in front of Mont St. Michel
GI's posing in front of command car.
location unknown.
[From
the book "Dodge" by Emile Becker and Guy
Dentzer. Photo courtesy of John Varner]
U.S. troops passing through Rennes France, August 1944.
[From
the book "Dodge" by Emile Becker and Guy
Dentzer. Photo courtesy of John Varner]
Soviet Army General G. K. Zhukov in Berlin reviewing US troops
in a WC-56 from the 82nd Airborne Division.
[From
the book "Dodge" by Emile Becker and Guy
Dentzer. Photo courtesy of John Varner]
This photo is of England's King George in Africa riding in an early
WC-56. Note Dodge plate above radiator grill and
blackout light mounted above headlight on right side.
[From
the book "Dodge" by Emile Becker and Guy
Dentzer. Photo courtesy of John Varner]
This great photo is of GIs unloading cases
of Coke from a WC-56 command car.
[Photo courtesy of John Varner]
Officers with this WC-56 are observing night troop
landing practice at an assault training center in
Devon England before the invasion of France.
Note the markings on the front bumper:
ASLT TRG CTR
[Photo taken from the book "Spearheading D-Day - American Special Forces
in Normandy" by Jonathan Gawne - Histoire & Collections publisher]
Here is a picture of a WC-56 in camouflage
shortly after the landings in France, 1944.
[Photo taken from the book "Spearheading D-Day - American Special Forces
in Normandy" by Jonathan Gawne - Histoire & Collections publisher]
Officers of the 229th Field Artillery Battalion, 28th Division,
in and about a Command Car in front of the Palace of
Versailles, Versailles, France, August, 1944.
Dodge command cars and other various vehicles
including weapons carriers gathered at the
parking area of Hitler's "Eagles Nest" near
Berchtesgaden, June 1945.
Photo courtesy of Tony Vaccaro and his book
"Entering Germany 1944 -1949" Taschen Books.
Command car (upper right) crossing the Rhine River
near the town of St. Goar March 29th 1945.
Picture taken from the website, " Bob Gallagher's
World War II Experiences".
This command car, which was used by an American intelligence
team, is parked in front of a German aircraft factory. The picture
was taken shortly after the factory's occupation by the Allies.
Dodge command car outfitted with radio set.
(Photo courtesy of the Patton Museum.)
Just behind Utah Beach a Dodge command car from the 915th
Field Artillery Bn, 90th Inf Div. receives directions from an MP.
Note the German bunker camouflaged as a French house.
[Photo taken from the book "Spearheading D-Day - American Special Forces
in Normandy" by Jonathan Gawne - Histoire & Collections publisher]
Dodge command car pulling a jeep from the mud.
308th Fighter Squadron, 31st Fighter Group,
Termini, Imerese Airfield, Sicily, 1943. Note:
The word "DIME" stenciled on the lower body
just behind the spare tire on the command
car and on the back of the Jeep. DIME
was code for Sicily.
[Photo taken from the book "Fighter Command" by Jeffrey
L. Ethell and Robert T. Sand - Motorbooks International
Publishers. Picture taken by William J. Skinner]
Dodge command car crossing the Rhine river - Germany 1944
[Photo courtesy of U.S. Naval Institute]
Travelling past bombed out buildings, a command car carrying US Gens.
(backseat, L-R) C.H. Hodges, George C. Marshall & Dwight Eisenhower & 2
un identified. officers in front during visit of top US brass to
Normandy areas after successful WWII Allied D-Day invasion.
Travelling past bombed out buildings, a command car carrying US Gens.
(backseat, L-R) C.H. Hodges, George C. Marshall & Dwight Eisenhower & 2
un identified. officers in front during visit of top US brass to
Normandy areas after successful WWII Allied D-Day invasion.
(Photo courtesy of Life Magazine)
GI's look on while Amer. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz speaks to Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold
and Gen. Laurence S. Kuter who are seated in jeep during inspection of airfield
while on US High Command tour of Normandy invasion area following
WWII Allied D-Day invasion ofFrance June 15, 1944.
(Photo courtesy of Life Magazine)
14th of June, 1944 - Brigadier General James Wharton, commander of the first
Engineer Special Brigade, escorts Admiral Harold Stark, commander of
naval forces in Europe, on an inspection of Utah Beach in a WC-57
command car. Seated is Rear Admiral Alan Kirk.
[Photo taken from the book "Spearheading D-Day - American Special Forces
in Normandy" by Jonathan Gawne - Histoire & Collections publisher]
More inspection photos by high ranking officers near Normandy Beach.
(Photos courtesy of Life Magazine)