Wearing brown uniforms and bearing bayonets, African American soldiers advance on gray-clad German troops, who appear to be startled, surrendering, hiding, and fleeing. French and German fighter planes skirmish in the distance. Bombs explode along the horizon. One of the Americans has fallen amid the chaos.

On the frame of this painting, Pippin affixed small carved versions of the tools of war—tanks, guns, hand grenades, gas masks, and other implements—alluding to some of the technological advances that made battle more brutal than ever before.