This photograph captures the aftermath of combat in a Pacific Theater town during World War II, its colonial-era buildings gutted by shelling and small-arms fire. A U.S. Army jeep parked along the debris-strewn street signals the arrival of American forces. Images such as this, preserved in the personal album of an airman with the 345th Bombardment Group, document the human cost of the island-hopping campaign that carried Allied forces from New Guinea through the Philippines to Ie Shima and, ultimately, toward the Japanese home islands. Project: 218227