On April 18, 1945, field photographer Robert Capa captured this iconic photograph of an American soldier being shot by a German sniper during the Battle of Leipzig in Germany. This photo appeared in the May issue of World War II of Life magazine in the United States.
In the last half month of the European War, machine gunners from the heavily armored reconnaissance platoon of the U.S. Seventh Army entered a building in Leipzig, looking for a location where they could set up a cover fire point to protect the infantry of the 2nd Infantry Regiment advancing across the bridge.
Two members of the reconnaissance platoon found an open balcony overlooking the bridge and picked up their guns. For a time, one soldier was on duty and another soldier was eating.
Then one soldier went in, and another soldier was alone with a full-hearted reload when a German sniper shot a bullet from the street pierced his forehead, and he fell to the ground in response.
War photographer Robert Capa climbed into his apartment from a balcony window to photograph the dead, lying in an open door with an Air Force sheepskin hat seized from the German Armoury. Many readers initially thought the Luftwaffe had been killed.
In photos taken minutes before Raymond J. Bowman (right) was killed, another soldier was Clarence Ridgeway (left).
Two years later, in a radio interview, Kappa recalled: "It was a very clean, very beautiful death, and I think it was the most memorable thing I did in the war".
The soldier was identified as Raymond M. Raymond J. Bowman, 21, was born in Rochester, New York. In January 1944, he was sent overseas to prepare for Operation Overlord. Baumann served in France, wounded in operation there on 3 August 1944, and later in Belgium and Germany.
During his service, he reached the rank of First Class. The Life magazine article did not name the soldier in the photo, though Bowman's family recognized him through the small pin he always wore on the collar (with his initials on it).
In July 2015, the German city of Leipzig voted to name the street in front of Baumann's apartment building (formerly known as Jahnallee 61) "Baumannstrasse" .
The name change took place on April 17, 2016. The apartment building now contains a small memorial with photos of Kappa and information about Bowman.
supplement:
Leipzig is a city in central Germany, located in the southwest of Berlin, next to the tributaries west of the Elbe, in the territory that belongs to East Germany, what many readers do not know is that in fact, the land of East Germany-Democratic Land was liberated by the Allies on the Western Front, but according to the established contract of Yalta to the Soviet Red Army, so the location of East Germany is actually the center of traditional Germany in the past, and the real east of Germany is all in the territory of today's Poland: Prussia, Bolemenia, Silesia, three large states, belonging to Germany for nearly 800 years.
On the right is the deceased Bowman
He is an experienced veteran of wounded wounds
Bowman fell to the ground after being hit
The members of the machine gun crew put on steel helmets and read in place to fight back