A Procession of German Prisoners Captured with the Fall of Aachen

October 1944Photograph

As U.S. forces surrounded the city of Aachen, the 26th Infantry Regiment began the offensive to take the city. Operating with only two battalions and a few tanks, the 26th attacked the city and its 10,000  defenders on October 13, 1944. They fought house to house until  the city was finally taken on October 21; the first German city to fall to American forces.

Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration

German prisoners proceeding after the Fall of Aachen.