Young men replace casualties

1st March 1945: 'Replacement' troops, fresh from America, are introduced to the battlefield even as it seems inevitable that Germany is defeated

Cologne was bombed by the RAF for the last time on 2nd March and occupied by the US Army on 6th March. The Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral) stands seemingly undamaged (although having been directly hit several times and damaged severely) while the entire area surrounding it is completely devastated.

Infantrymen of 30th Division, 9th U.S. Army, move through the town of Kirchherten, Germany, as they push across the Cologne plain. 27th February, 1945.

From a hill overlooking Alsdorf, Germany, infantrymen of the 76th Division advancing to the front in a 2½ ton truck get a clear view of the burning town. 304th Infantry Regiment, 76th Infantry Division.

The United States would suffer over 550,000 casualties in northwest Europe between the invasion of France in 1944 and the end of the war, 104,000 men¹ would die in this theatre alone. While the British were now struggling to replace the casualties they had sustained, America had a steady supply of young men who would fill the gaps in the ranks. There were men yet to cross the Atlantic who still had time to die in the cause of freedom.

Men fire smoke shells from an 81mm mortar supporting infantrymen of the U.S. First Army as they advance on a pillbox. 28 February, 1945. 424th Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division.

… we noticed that one of the Germans was still alive, even though he had been blown almost in two and his legs were missing.

German prisoners and their American guard crouch behind an American tank destroyer for protection against a barrage of German SP guns and "Screaming Meemies." The prisoners were captured by infantrymen of the 4th Division, U.S. Third Army in the Prum Valley, Germany. 28 February, 1945.