{"id":33736,"date":"2019-03-01T18:22:13","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T18:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33736"},"modified":"2019-03-01T18:22:13","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T18:22:13","slug":"rare-wwii-color-photos-bring-history-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33736","title":{"rendered":"Rare WWII color photos bring history to life"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Smiling pilots crouching atop their planes. Squadrons of bombers soaring above the clouds. Crews taking a break during a training day.<\/p>\n

These are just a selection of the images included in a new book, curated by London’s Imperial War Museum, which provides a rare glimpse of World War II in color.<\/p>\n

The restored images highlight the key role of aerial battles in the 1939-45 conflict, with a focus on the pilots and planes that protected Allied airspace and carried out raids on enemy targets. <\/p>\n

\n
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\"Celebrations<\/div>\n

Celebrations to mark a Lancaster bomber reaching 100 missions \u00a9 IWM Credit: <\/span>IWM TR 1795<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“War in the Air: The Second World War in Colour” was compiled from an archive of 11 million photos at the Imperial War Museum and will be published in April 2019.<\/p>\n

Photos show pilots celebrating a bomber that has just returned from its 100th mission, another fixing his helmet before a flight, and a group of planes preparing to take off in the North African desert.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Kittyhawk<\/div>\n

Kittyhawk Mk IIIs prepare to take off in Tunisia in 1943 \u00a9 IWM Credit: <\/span>IWM TR 975<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The images illustrate missions undertaken by British, Commonwealth and US air forces in Europe and the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"A<\/div>\n

A pilot crouches on top of his plane in France in 1944 \u00a9 IWM Credit: <\/span>IWM FRE 7212<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“Color photography was a rarity during World War II; film was scarcely available and images were expensive to print,” said Ian Carter, author of the book and a senior curator at the museum.<\/p>\n

“Each photo has been carefully optimized by IWM restorers to bring back color accuracy and detail which over the years have faded from both paper and memory.”<\/p>\n

\n
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\"Pilots<\/div>\n

Pilots relax during a training camp in Florida in 1941 \u00a9 IWM Credit: <\/span>IWM TR 89<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The book is the latest collection of color photographs released by the museum, which also published “The Second World War in Colour” in 2017.<\/p>\n

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\"Air<\/div>\n

Air force personnel pose at a flying school in Southern Rhodesia in 1943 \u00a9 IWM Credit: <\/span>IWM TR 1263<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In November 2018, the UK’s Press Association agency released a selection of colorized images to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of WW1.<\/p>\n

Photographers captured a number of emotional scenes after armistice was declared, including a shot of the Victory Parade in London and the burial of the Unknown Warrior at a memorial service in the British capital in 1920.<\/p>\n

The images were released as part of a number of events to commemorate the end of the war, in which around 8,500,000 people died and more than 21,000,000 were wounded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Smiling pilots crouching atop their planes. Squadrons of bombers soaring above the clouds. Crews taking a break during a training day. These are just a selection of the images included in a new book, curated by London’s Imperial War Museum, which provides a rare glimpse of World War II in color. The restored images highlight…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}