American Infantrymen in Battle Scarred Rohrwiller, France
Date:
ca. 1945
Description:
Caption on back of photo reads: "American infantrymen of 36th Division run through rubble littered street of battle-scarred Rohrwiller, France. Town is under enemy attack."
Captain Philip Staples Receives Egg Omelette From French Civilians
Date:
ca. 1945
Description:
Information on back of photo reads: "Capt. Philip Staples; Ardmore, Pennsylvania enjoys a fresh made egg omelette that was presented to him by grateful French civilians who had just been liberated from German hands, near Champagne."
Information on the back of photo reads: "Infantrymen of the Fourth Armored Division, Third U.S. Army, advance through rubble in a battered street in Worms, Germany, as they clear out Nazi snipers in the captured city March 20, 1945. Worms is on the west bank of the Rhine River nine miles north of Ludwigshafen."
German Civilians Greet U.S. Troops With Flags, Weilheim, Germany
Date:
ca. 1945
Description:
information on back of photo reads: "Smiling civilians of the Bavarian town of Weilheim, Germany, greet troops of the 12th Armored Division, Seventh U.S. Army, with American, British, and Bavarian flags April 28, 1945."
United States Army Infantryman Raymond M. Young of Oak Hill, W. Va.
Date:
ca. 1945
Description:
Young was also a combat photographer and attached tothe 361st Engineers Special unit and at times attached to Third Army commanded by George Patton during the push into Germany. Note the friendly dog sitting next to Young is a German Shephard.
Information on back of photo reads: "Debris litters the interior of a ruined church in Germany, one of the many buildings destroyed during the bitter fighting which marked the Allied thrust into the Reich."
The photograph was most likely taken in Holland, which had been under Nazi control for several years until portions of the country was liberated by the Allies in the Fall of 1944 during Operation Market Garden.
A large port and industrial center that includied u-boat pens and oil refineries was bombed throughout the war. An air attack in July 1942 created one of the largest firestorms of WW II, killing 42,600 civilians, wounding 37,000 and practically destroying the city.
