The first still WW2 pic that piqued your interest ?

Hey good topic

Im not sure if this is the first photo that got me interested, as that is so far back in time that such knowledge is lost! but these two are ones that I remember from my boyhood, I think I saw them first in Purnells magazine series.

Been a sucker for Hugo Boss ever since -- attachment is not available ---- attachment is not available --

Not quite original WW2, but I imagine these were one of the first WW2 images that piqued my interest- I do remember buying and painting these:

(Plus the lancaster and the D-day box set )

Plus all the rest of the range but these were my favorites in this order.
Plus this.

I seemed to grow up with WWII. My dad got the original Purnell WWII magazine series (which I now have!), and I always remember this pic.

I'm sure it wasn't a WW2 photo that got me interested (we didn't have any WW2 books at home, never saw any WW2 films, didn't cover WW2 at school) but would definitely have been a combination of Airfix model kits, Airfix 1:72 figures, Commando magazines, Action Man and bubble gum collecting cards. History never came into it!

Mine was This One

i later found out it was based on a real photo

i also liked this one too

and one of Porta and Tiny

I started with Airfix kits back in the 1960s, military history and wargaming followed thereafter. I really can't remember the first WW2 photos I saw, maybe the photo illustrations in Heinz Knockes 'I Flew for the Fuhrer', lots of crashed B-17s and Herr Knocke striking various heroic poses. My Dad was ex-RAF heavily into RC aircraft so we had tons of WW2 air memoir books around the house. Most of them just had paintings on the front though.

'The War' was a fairly major topic of conversation much of the time as it had only ended 25 years before...

My Gran had an illustrated six volume history of WW2 which had tons of amazing photos in it, but the most memorable photos were the predictably horrible ones of bombing casualties and Japanese and German atrocities. The one I remember most was one of a little girl killed in the bombing of Rotterdam.

Cheers
Martin

It doesn`t surprise me that Airfix and Sven Hassel are mentioned. They seemed to be the staple diet of many a lad in the 1970s.

Absolutely no idea, like Martin, growing up it was just all pervasive and incredibly recent at the age of 46 - 25 years ago doesn't seem like such a long time now, The Falklands was longer ago now than World War 2 was when I was young.

War films on telly, Action Men, Airfix kits - I remember my Mum painting the camouflage for me on a spitfire I'd made probably aged 5 or 6 - dress up soldiers' uniforms (I made myself some gaiters out of the canvas from two action men camp beds), Dad's Army on the telly, Playing war at school and after school, Warlord, Battle, Commando, Victor, The World at War documentary series.

One of Henning Wenn's jokes is that when he first moved to England he turned on the TV and there happened to be a film about the war on the TV. What were the chances of that he thought...

Charlie

My revelation was deploying my box of airfix toy soldiers across the carpet when I was about six and my Grandad advising me to spread them out more as one shell or bomb would kill them all. Up until then it hadn't occurred to me that the baddies might also have guns'n'stuff

Heh, when playing with my soldiers, my granddad said to me "are the bodies starting to smell?" As an 8-year-old, I had no idea what he was on about. He fought in the trenches in the first world war.

My grandfather watched me setting up my sister's (!) Airfix British Infantry Support Group and on spotting the mortars he said that they were buggers as you never heard them coming. He then proceeded to talk for about half an hour of his time as a Lewis gunner during WW1. The only time he ever spoke to me about it. A lot to thank Airfix for.

I suppose if the one of the most disturbing and defining chapters of your life has been reduced to a kid's toy, you might also feel tempted to spoil the party a bit...

i know it's WW1 but Charley's War in Battle comic was a real eye-opener. The detail of Colquhoun's artwork is incredible...

and i made this old Tamiya kit when i was 11 -- attachment is not available ---- attachment is not available --

not a picture and not ww2 but ww1 so not really relevant but I'm on a roll so...,when i was about 6 or 7 while visiting a very well-to-do elderly maiden of the church with my mother ,i was bored so she opened up a box of toys of her brothers for me to play with...now as an adult i look back on these wonders.it was a complete set of ww1 tin soldiers plus artillery howitzers ...in short the whole panoply of war on both British and German side.the howitzers had lead shell's that pushed in then locked with a twist into cartridges under spring tension,when loaded into the howitzer and fired at the pull of a lever.these must have been early twenty's toys of the very rich ,each figure was lovingly painted and cared for in the original boxes,hell only knows what the set was worth then let along now and the old dear indulged me greatly by letting me play un-hindered with them as her brother had and would not let my mother stop me,i was never allowed to play with them again on later visits and she died not long after but the memory is still fresh in my mind to this day.

I think the one that made me aware of the war in general, from a very early age, was a photo of my Grandfather, on a beach in Italy, on a motorbike.

He was a miserable, alcoholic old sod, even when I was very young, but he looked happy in the photo.