I think there are better ways to do this, but if you absolutely have to do it your way, use padding - setting the width and height of your image with CSS, will definitely deform it ...
No, there is no way you can do that inside of one img tag, as the background and the image itself are assigned the same height and width so they will always overlap each other and be stretchd or shrunk into the dimensions you specify. What you could do is merge the images into one, thats probably your only chance in case you are really stuck with a one tag only policy.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.