World War Two Urban Combat

During the second World War, during and after the D-day invasion, combat in urban areas became very common as Allied forces battled the Nazis to liberate Northern Europe and to end Hitler's reign of power. Many towns and villages throughout France, Holland, and Belgium became battlegrounds as stone and brick buildings, shelled and bombed to rubble, gave excelent cover for enemy soilders, machine-gunners, and snipers. The Allies had to fight their way from building-to-building in a deadly game of hide-and-seek, employing hand grenades, sub-machine guns, and any weapon that could be used. My brothers and I re-created these scenes after researching old books, looking at old photographs, and having been to a couple museums....

This Allied soldier is from the 82nd Airborne Division, one of two American Airborne units to drop out of the sky by parachute on the early morning of June 6th behind Nazi lines in Normandy (Northern France).A U.S. Infantryman blasts away at a German Nazi defender with his M3 "Grease Gun" a submachine gun called by this name due to the fact it highly resembles a grease gun.Grenades, light-weight bombs that could be thrown by hand, were used freely in street fighting, as they could be thrown quickly around a corner of a building to clear out any machine gun nest or rifle pit that might be on the other side.