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Famous Facts & Quotes
Courtesy World War II Veterans Committee, c/o The American Studies Center
Washington, D.C.
December 7, 1941: a date which will live in infamy. That morning, Japanese airplanes launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. When the smoke cleared, 21 ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were sunk or damaged. The attack enraged America, now at war, leaving President Roosevelt to declare,"With confidence in our armed forces-with the unbounded determination of our people-we will gain the inevitable triumph- so help us God".
In late 1944, it seemed that the war in Europe was all but over. Hitler's vaunted Wehrmacht was on the run, and some even thought that the war might be over by Christmas. However, on December 16 the German army launched a massive surprise offensive in the Ardennes Forrest, taking the Allies by surprise. The result was the largest land battle of the war, known as the Battle of the Bulge. Lasting through some of the coldest weather on record, the Germans were finally turned back well after the new year.
On February 19, 1945, American forces stormed ashore on the volcanic island of Iwo Jima. Located between American bomber bases in the Marianas and Japan, the seizure of this heavily fortified Japanese base was of vital importance. The island's defenders fought savagely, and progress was agonizingly slow. Four days after the landings, on February 23, elements of the 5th Marine Division reached the summit of the Mt Suribachi, the island's highest point. In what became the most famous image of the war, six men raised the Stars and Stripes atop the mountain, signifying it was now under American control.


The Third Reich was beginning to crumble in March of 1945. Soviet troops were rapidly advancing in the east, capturing the city of Danzig. The Western Allies seized Cologne, and crossed the Rhine River over the bridge at Remagen. American forces passed the vaunted Siegfried Line with relative ease. Hitler ordered a final offensive in the east, in a failed attempt to save the oil fields in Hungary. It was now clear that Germany would be defeated.

While the war in Europe was ending in April of 1945, fighting in the Pacific continued, brutal as ever. The recently won victory on Iwo Jima had come at a heavy price, with the American forces suffering 26,000 casualties. Virtually all of the 22,000 Japanese defenders perished. Fighting would be even more intense on Okinawa, which U.S. forces invaded on April 1. Backed by the might of the United States Navy, Okinawa was taken, and would prove to be the last major battle of World War ll.
By the first of May, 1945, the war in Europe was all but over. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were dead and the Red Army was in Berlin. Allied forces in the west had driven far into Germany, spurred by the organizational brilliance of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the battlefield tenacity of George S. Patton, and the inspiring leadership of Omar N. Bradley. On May 7, German General Alfred Jodl signed a document of unconditional surrender at Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims, France. However, a second surrender ceremony would take place one day later in Soviet-occupied Berlin at the demand of Josef Stalin.


"Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark on the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you..." Thus began General Dwight D. Eisenhower's order of the day for June 6, 1944. The invasion of Normandy would be the largest military operation the world had yet seen. As he rallied the men of the 101st Airborne Division before they boarded their planes, Eisenhower reminded them that the Allies would accept "nothing less than full Victory."


The summer of 1940 saw the darkest days of World War ll. The German army swiftly and easily defeated all challengers in the west, knocking France out of the war, and forcing the British to evacuate the continent at Dunkirk. On July 10, Britain, now alone in the fight, came under direct and merciless attack from the German Luftwaffe. The British people, however, remained resolute, and despite constant bombing, held firm. Standing tall amid the smoke and fire, St. Paul's Cathedral served as a symbol of British determination in what Churchill called "their finest hour."
In 1940, Paris had fallen to Hitler's Blitzkrieg, but in August of 1944, the City of Lights was liberated by the Allied armies, marking the end of Operation Overlord. Despite orders from Hitler that the city be held to the last, then destroyed, the German command surrendered to American and Free French forces on August 25. In the days that followed, victory parades on the Champs-Elysees were held, celebrating the city's freedom.


On September 2, 1945, after six long years of death and destruction, World War II officially ended, with the surrender of Japan to the Allied forces. Only a month earlier, it appeared that there was no end in sight, as the Japanese insisted they would fight to the last man. Both sides were preparing for the inevitable invasion of Japan, in which forecasts predicted the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions. However, after the deployment of the atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Emperor Hirohito was finally convinced he had no choice but to capitulate.


The months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor saw a series of defeats for the United States in the Pacific. Among the most disheartening was the loss of the Philippines, which led to the imprisonment of thousands of American soldiers and the infamous Bataan Death March. Forced to flee, the Allied commander in the Philippines, Douglas MacArthur, vowed, "I shall return." Two and a half years later, in October of 1944, MacArthur kept that promise, coming ashore with the troops under his command, as they recaptured the islands.


The "Big Three" met for the first time at Tehran on November 28,1943, in an effort to plan the final destruction of Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Josef Stalin agreed that the following spring, Operation Overlord (the invasion of France) would commence, and that the Soviet Union would join the war effort against Japan once Germany was defeated. However, the dark clouds of the future Cold War began to develop, as Stalin demanded a Soviet expansion in the west.


Far from home and surrounded by death and destruction, the Christmas season could be a lonely one for servicemen and women. Still, there was much to be thankful for, and the hope for peace after victory remained. In the words of Winston Churchill, "We may cast aside, for this night at least, the cares and dangers which besiege us and make for the children an evening of happiness in a world of storm."






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