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

No way out but surrender

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

American Military Policeman Ray E. Kellogg directs traffic in bomb-shattered Anzio, Italy; 1943.