Last week, the online newspaper The Huffington Post featured the work of photographer Jonathan Andrew. The Amsterdam-based artist has built a name for himself photographing the remains of Second World War fortifications across Europe. In his latest set, which you can view here, Andrew focuses his lens on the abandoned bunkers, dugouts and tank traps of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. According to Andrew, the brooding and somber images capture the strange beauty inherent in these ominous structures. See if you agree.

And as long as we’re looking at battlefield photography, consider these offerings.
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The Western Front

Similar to Andrews, British photographer Michael St. Maur Sheil specializes in capturing images of European battlefields. However this particular artist’s passion lies in immortalizing the battle scarred landscapes of Flanders, which are still healing from the century-old devastation of the First World War. In 2011, The U.K. newspaper, The Daily Mail, presented some of St Maur Sheil’s more arresting images of overgrown trenches, cavernous dugouts and disappearing craters across the French and Belgian countryside. Check them out here.
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Truk Lagoon — The South Pacific

Historic battlefield photography isn’t just limited to Europe – the forgotten war zones of the Pacific, both on land and beneath the waves, are fertile ground for artists and their cameras. The famous Truk Lagoon in Micronesia is a popular setting for this genre. Seventy years ago, the anchorage was a major naval base for the Imperial Japanese Navy. The natural harbour, which is hemmed in by hundreds of miles of coral reef north of New Guinea and the Solomons, was so well-protected, the Americans dubbed it the Gibraltar of the Pacific. The base housed much of the Japanese fleet and included five runways, several submarine pens and deep-water slips for aircraft carriers, heavy cruisers and battleships. In February of 1944, the U.S. Navy attacked Truk Lagoon in a combined air and sea operation. During the raid, dubbed Operation Hailstone, 15 Japanese warships were sent to the bottom along with more than 30 merchant ships and supply vessels that were carrying everything from tanks and trucks to field guns and infantry equipment. Following the strike, the Japanese abandoned the island, pulling their forces closer to home waters. Since then, the seabed there has been a silent tomb strewn with shipwrecks and debris. The forgotten wreckage teems with marine life and has long since been overgrown with plants and coral. Divers and thrill seekers flock to Truk Lagoon each year to explore and capture images the wartime debris and visit with these ghosts of the past. The photography site LoveThesePics.com recently showcased an assortment of images of Truk Lagoon, the largest ship graveyard in the world. Check them out here.

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I See Dead People — The Ghosts of War

Speaking of ghosts, Dutch photographer Jo Teeuwisse blends historic photography of the Second World War with contemporary European streetscapes to conjure up her own spirits of the past. By positioning herself and her camera in the exact footsteps of wartime photographers who snapped iconic images of combat and overlapping her photos and the historic snapshots, Teeuwisse opens virtual portals onto the past. The results are wonderfully eerie. Click here to see her amazing work for yourself.