You may be right - I keep thinking that is a BBQ grill on the second floor porch!
I always thought the guy in the picture was too fat for a soldier at the end of the war.
The first pic is a fake from a WW2 reenactment. The photo was taken at Fort Mifflin in Philadelphia and sold as an original photo on ebay.
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Maybe this thread should be moved to Collecting Off Topic - Faked Period Pics.
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