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DOWN TO EARTH: Painted from memory the month after his jump, Baldwin’s watercolor depicts his drop zone at the height of Operation Varsity, the airborne operation across Germany’s Rhine River on March 24, 1945. As Wesel, Germany, burns in the background, an armada of C-47s peels back toward Allied lines; the paratrooper about to touch down at far left is Baldwin’s tribute to Private First Class Robert Porterfield Jr., a friend and fellow artist killed during the jump.
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The WWII Paratrooper Who Recorded His War in Art
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