In the last days of the war, a unit of soldiers went to a Leipzig building to find positions to set up covering fire points so they could protect foot soldiers of the 2nd U.S. Infantry coming across the bridge.
Two of the members of the unit discovered an open balcony that provided a clear view of the bridge, and set up their gun After some time, one soldier fired the gun while the other soldier reloaded it.
One soldier retreated to the house while the other soldier operated the smoking gun alone. While the soldier who was left to operate the gun reloaded it, a German sniper’s bullet from the street was shot at his forehead. He fell on the floor dead.
Robert Capa, a war photographer, came to the flat through a balcony window to photograph the dead man. The dead soldier lay in the open door with a looted Luftwaffe sheepskin helmet on his head.
The next set of pictures showed the rapid spread of the soldier’s blood and the other GIs taking care of the body while his fellow gunner replaced him and manned the gun.
CAPA in a radio interview a few years later said, “It was a very clean, somehow very beautiful death and I think that’s what I remember most from the war.”
The soldier, Raymond J. Bowman, was born in Rochester, New York. He was 21 at the time of his death. During his service, he reached the rank of Private first class.
While Life magazine could not recognize the soldiers, Bowman’s family recognized him by the small pin he always wore that bore his initials.
The pictures went on to be some of the most memorable from the war. The pictures were published in Life magazine’s Victory edition on 14 May with the caption “The picture of the last man to die”.
