In constant danger from falling walls, infantry from the 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, move through the smoke filled city of Crailsheim, Germany, (about half-way between Stuttgart and Nuremberg); April 21, 1945.
   Crailsheim's railroad and airfield were heavily defended by the Waffen-SS in 1945. Following an American Army assault in mid-April 1945 the town was occupied briefly by US forces before being lost to German counter-offensive. Intense US bombing and artillery shelling during a second US conquest destroyed much of the city, with subsequent fires consuming its historic inner city.

Taking the ruins of a city

Troops of the U.S. 100th Infantry Division attack in the devastated city of Heilbronn on the Neckar river, just north of Stuttgart, Germany; April, 1945.

Combat in the ruins

U.S. soldiers with fixed bayonettes, watch as German soldiers file out of a house and surrender in an unnamed town.