FRANCE: American soldiers examining ruins near the church in Argentan, near Falaise, on 20 August 1944. FOLLOWING their heroics at the Normandy Landings, a stunning new book captures the fierce resistance the Allied Forces came up against whilst pushing the Nazis out of France. Harrowing pictures from the latter stages of World War Two include US soldiers running into battle at the exact moment a shell bursts right next to them, a field full of abandoned German helmets after a wholesale surrender, and a sickening crash landing for an allied paratrooper who was fighting for a free Europe. Another incredible image portrays the fearful yet stoic expression of a 24-year-old tank operator, captured just days before he was killed in action, and the gutted landscape of a Dutch town ravaged by constant air raids. Mediadrumimages/BrookeSBlades/NARA