From WWII, I'd never seen these before

This morning a friend of mine, Black Swan sent me a couple sets of photographs taken during World War II, I've seen a number of WWII photos over the years  These I had not seen, so for me at least they lived up to the rare and unusual title at the top of the page. Tonight I'm publishing the first set..

The second set, besides the pictures and the story they tell may have some hints about who took the photo's... I'm going to try checking into that before I post those,

I don't know who originally posted these on the Internet of who took the pictures..They came from different parts of the world, and give a glimpse of what those places looked like during the war..

 Japanese Kawanishi H8K seaplane

 after strafing. Kwajalein

Squad of Rufe's at Bougainville. 

These things were very nimble even with the pontoons.

The A6M2-N float plane version of the Zero did extremely well, suffering only a small loss in its legendary maneuverability.Top speed was not affected however, the aircraft's relatively light armament was a detriment.

 Snow on the deck of the USS Philippine Sea.

 North Pacific 1945 

Lots more

 HARVS on the way in shot by a P-47. 

Rare shot.

Deck crew climbing up to get the pilot out.  He did. 

That’s a fuel tank his foot is on.  Empty?

 Marines disembark LST 

at Tinian Island.

 Bougainville.

Guam

German 280mm K5 firing

 Outside Bastogne

U.S. munitions ship goes up during 

the invasion of Sicily.

Spitfire "tipping-off" a V1. If you've never heard of this insane tactic; at first V1's were shot down by gunfire. Optimum range was inside 200 yds, which was marginal for survival.  Many planes were damaged and quite a few pilots killed. Basically at such high speed and low altitude a plane had to fly though the explosion and hope.

With the high risk of being blown up some of the best pilots started tipping the V1's wing, because of damage to wing tips they later developed a tactic of disrupting the airflow by placing their wing very close to the V1's wing, causing it to topple.

Not every pilot did this. At night this was not possible, the flame from the V1 blinded the pilot to everything else, though some Mossie pilots flew past closely in front of the V1, again causing it to topple. The thought of doing this at 450mph, 4,000 feet above the ground, at night and being blinded gives me the willies.

Panzerkampfwagen VI "E Tiger"

 V 1

Ju 88 loading a torpedo. This is one HUGE bomber 

... and it's on pontoons!!!!

German "KARL" mortars. Sebastopol

Reloading a KARL

That is a heavy Mortar

BOOM!

Macchi 202v

Italian 303 Bombers over N Africa