Meeting on the Elbe river; Handshakes with the Soviet soldiers from the 58th Guards Rifle Division and the American soldiers of the 273rd Infantry Regiment, 69th Infantry Division ("Fighting 69th") of the VII Corps of the US 1st Army. 
From left to right: Private 1st Class John A. Mitzer, Private 1st Class Dilbert E. Philpott, and Private Thomas B. Summers; near the town of Torgau, Germany April 25, 1945.

American GIs and Russian soldiers greet each other

A link-up of American soldiers from the US 82nd Airborne Division and the Soviet servicemen from the 8th Guards Mechanized Corps of the 1st Guards Tank Army of the 1st Belorussian Front near the German town of Grabow, close to the Elbe river; May 3, 1945.

Making contact with the Russians

James Jones wrote the seminal war novels From Here to Eternity and The Thin Red Line. Imbuing his novels in the grand literary tradition of American Romanticism, Jones touches on both the well tread themes of the terror and beauty of nature amidst the death and carnage in war and the corruption of the human spirit amid the forces of power and industrialization. His novels were well received as Jones fictionalized his pre-war experiences with the 25th ID based in Hawaii as a prism on the human condition. From Here to Eternity was turned into a classic Hollywood love story and The Thin Red Line was transformed into a gritty statement on the human condition in 1998; with many believing it surpassed the better known Saving Private Ryan as a war film.