Probably dressed for inspection. I had a camera at this time, an old bellows Kodak that I bought at the end of the war.
This is parts of two squads, the machine gun squad and the mortar squad. Half of these were replacements after Herlischeim and Colmar. Schneider, Otto, Cromer, and myself were wounded, only Colunga made it through unwounded.
Randy Schneider was a replacement after Herlisheim, and was wounded at Colmar. I can't recall how he was wounded. This is June or July in 1945, and Colmar was in February.
This appears to be taken at the same time as the first picture on this page. I have a PFC stripe and the 12th Armored Division patch.
This was a camp with a massive amount of German troops of the Wermacht. I think these were part of the processing and release of the German troops. Those German troops that didn't show up when the roll was called to go home would be sent to the Soviet Union as reparations. I've heard that 800,000 troops were sent, or were already there, to help rebuild the cities. The Germans didn't want to go, so they were careful to show up when the roll was called, and these officers were an example of how trusting the American troops were in this situation. I can't recall where I took this picture.