Leonard McCombe – Aftermath of War France

After the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944, Leonard McCombe accompanied British troops as a war correspondent with the rank of captain. His pictures show dead and wounded soldiers, military doctors and nurses behind the front lines and in field hospitals, and field chaplains performing last rites for the fallen. He captures the relief of German prisoners of war that their battles have ended. McCombe documents the hunger and deprivation suffered by Parisians after liberation in the bitterly cold winter of 1944. Although the city itself had been spared major destruction, French railroad lines and ports were badly damaged, and food supplies stalled. Leonard McCombe photographs a woman selling her jewelry on the black market, starving people hastily picking up apples from the street, and long lines in front of soup kitchens.