Flags from pieces of paper

“We were greeted by crowds of people with home-made American flags from pieces of paper. They offered us beer and cakes, and we knew that those were their last morsels of food,” James Duncan recalled. During World War 2, Sergeant James H. Duncan Snr was commander of the “F” Company of the 38th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division of the US Army, which liberated Pilsen and Domažlice. Duncan remembers the liberation of Pilsen as one of the most emotional and happiest moments of his life: “I was nineteen years old then. The only moments that can compete with the liberation are when I married my wife and when my son was born.” He had obtained a camera from a captured German officer, found a stock of film in the ruins of a Pilsen house, and documented those significant moments of freedom. Even today his collection of several hundred photos speaks in volumes regarding the atmosphere of those first days and weeks following the liberation.