WWII 80: Highlights from the Truman Library
Eighty years ago, World War II ended under President Truman’s decisive leadership. “WWII 80” uses historic artifacts, eyewitness accounts, and consequential documents from the vaults of the Truman Library and National Archives to highlight key moments in the war’s final months–from the Battle of the Bulge and liberation of Dachau to the unconditional surrender of Japan.
THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE
THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 1945
How did the Allied forces win the bloodiest American battle of the deadliest war in human history?
On December 16, 1944, at the beginning of a historically frigid winter, the Germans launched what would be their final major offensive of World War II. The Battle of the Bulge was the bloodiest battle for American forces on the Western Front during WWII – 20,000 Americans were killed in this battle; tens of thousands more were wounded, missing, or captured.
THE YALTA CONFERENCE
FEBRUARY 04-11, 1945
80 years ago, three men mapped the end of World War II. Did they also pave the way for a Cold War?
From February 4-11, 1945, the Crimean resort town of Yalta hosted some of the most powerful men in the world. In what was only their second (and last) meeting together, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin planned their final victory over the Axis powers and reached an agreement for governing Europe.
THE BOMBING OF DRESDEN
FEBRUARY 13-15, 1945
Eighty years ago, the Allied nations joined forces to defeat fascist brutality in Germany and Japan.
The march to victory, however, was not without its own horror. Then as now, the bombing of Dresden exemplifies the cruelty of that cruelest of wars. Before February 1945, few could have predicted that the beautiful, historic city of Dresden would become a target for Allied bombers.
IWO JIMA
FEBRUARY 23, 1945
The Iwo Jima Memorial in miniature is a small testament to tremendous courage.
In February and March 1945, U.S. Marines and sailors fought a brutal battle with Japanese troops on a tiny island south of Japan. In the course of securing Iwo Jima more than 26,000 Americans were killed or wounded, and the Japanese garrison of 22,000 was nearly wiped out. For Americans, one iconic image of Iwo Jima predominates.
THE TOKYO FIRE RAIDS
MARCH 9, 1945
On the night of March 9-10, 1945, American B-29 bombers barraged Tokyo with napalm in the most devastating aerial bombardment in history.
Like the Tokyo Raid of 1942 (aka the Doolittle Raid), this attack, Operation Meetinghouse, was meant to damage Japanese morale and spur the end of the war. The nighttime raid marked a turning point in U.S. bombing tactics in the Pacific Theater.
THE BATTLE OF OKINAWA
APRIL 1, 1945
Easter Sunday, April Fools’ Day, and codenamed “Love Day” by U.S. forces – must have seemed an unwarlike day for starting a major military operation.
Yet it was on that date that American troops landed on the Pacific island of Okinawa, initiating one of the bloodiest and most important battles of World War II.
THE LIBERATION OF BUCHENWALD
APRIL 11, 1945
On April 11, GIs of the 6th Armored Division entered Buchenwald, the main camp in a large complex of concentration camps near Weimar that had recently been abandoned by German troops
American soldiers who liberated the camp were met by thousands of emaciated camp survivors. Shortly after the camp’s liberation, Bernard Bernstein reached Buchenwald and came face-to-face with the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. His story is part of the Truman Library’s archives.
“THE PRESIDENT IS DEAD”
APRIL 12, 1945
On the afternoon of April 12, 1945, Vice President Harry S. Truman was just starting to relax after a day of presiding over the Senate when he was urgently summoned to the White House.
There he received the unwelcome news that President Franklin Roosevelt had died and that he was now president. Truman said he “felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”
THE LIBERATION OF DACHAU
APRIL 29, 1945
In April 1945, as the European war neared its end, one question loomed large: how would the Allies ensure that justice was served to the perpetrators of Dachau and other Nazi crimes against humanity?
Dachau. In the long list of terms from World War II that produce a shudder in humanity’s collective psyche, the name of Nazi Germany’s first concentration camp occupies a special place.
THE DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER
APRIL 30, 1945
75 years ago today – with the Red Army only blocks away – Hitler killed himself in the Führerbunker beneath the city streets of Berlin.
Two days later, on May 2, 1945, Truman met with the press in the White House for what was only his fifth press conference as president.
GERMANY SURRENDERS!
MAY 7, 1945
Today marks the 80th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany.
On May 7, 1945, the Allied vise slammed shut on what remained of Nazi Germany. With American, British, and French troops advancing from the west and the Soviets overrunning the eastern part of the country, the German high command had little choice but to surrender their battered forces.
VICTORY GARDENS
JUNE 2, 1945
Although Nazi Germany had surrendered weeks earlier and the Japanese Empire was near collapse, President Truman sent a strong message to Americans on June 2, 1945 about winning the war…and winning the peace.
President Truman’s challenge to Americans: grow victory gardens, preserve the harvest, and conserve, “wasting not an ounce.”
CIVIL RIGHTS
JUNE 5, 1945
President Truman knew that victory in WWII depended on the full participation of “all available workers regardless of race, creed or color.”
When Congress abruptly dropped appropriations for the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) – the agency in charge of protecting Americans from discrimination in defense industries or government – in the spring of 1945, Truman launched an impassioned defense of the FEPC and civil rights.
THE UNITED NATIONS
JUNE 26, 1945
Popular depictions of World War II concentrate on the world at arms and the deaths of millions of people. But violence was not the war’s only legacy.
On June 26, 1945, representatives from 50 nations signed the United Nations Charter, establishing an intergovernmental body promoting peace and international cooperation. After the signing, Harry Truman called on his fellow Americans to adopt the letter and spirit of the Charter and help the United Nations achieve worldwide harmony.
HOW CHILDREN HELPED WIN THE WAR
JULY 5, 1945
World War II was a total war. Those who were not soldiers conserved, raised money, boosted soldiers’ morale, worked in manufacturing, and contributed to the war effort in countless other ways. Even young people participated.
On July 5, 1945, President Harry Truman received a unique report on a campaign waged by a devoted band of home-front workers: thirty-million schoolchildren.
THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB TEST
JULY 16, 1945
At 5:29 AM on July 16, 1945, an enormous explosion rocked the bleak desert of southern New Mexico. The cause of the blast was a device called the Gadget, which exploded with the force of forty million pounds of TNT. People felt the shockwave 100 miles from ground zero, and newspapers reported that a blind woman 150 miles away asked: “What’s that brilliant light?”
“That brilliant light” was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon; the test was given the code name “Trinity” by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer after a poem by John Donne.
THE POTSDAM CONFERENCE
JULY 17 – AUGUST 2, 1945
What do you do when you’re about to win a war and your mightiest ally seems just as dangerous as your enemies?
This question loomed large for President Harry Truman when he met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin for the first time on July 17, 1945. With Germany defeated and occupied, heads of the “Big Three” Allied nations — the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain — had begun a 16-day conference in Potsdam, Germany, to decide the fate of war-torn Europe.
THE POTSDAM DECLARATION
JULY 26, 1945
By July 1945, Japan was defeated nearly everywhere except in the hearts and minds of the Japanese. Even as the Japanese Empire crumbled and the suffering Japanese prepared for invasion, military leaders reminded their people that national honor prohibited surrender to the Allies.
On July 26, however, the leaders of the United States, the Republic of China, and Great Britain demanded that Japan do that very thing. In the Potsdam Declaration, they promised a vague yet dire scenario for the Japanese should they refuse to yield.
THE BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA
AUGUST 6, 1945
At 8:15 AM on August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber opened its bay doors over the Japanese city of Hiroshima and released a solitary bomb. Forty-four seconds later, it exploded 1,900 feet above the city. This single explosion brought the Second World War into its final phase and revealed to the world a new and devastating weapon.
Today, visitors to the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum’s digital archives can open a window onto the bomb and Hiroshima’s fate through a remarkable series of photographs.
THE BOMBING OF NAGASAKI
AUGUST 9, 1945
Visitors to the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum can view a unique artifact that speaks to the revolutionary power and danger of the weapon that destroyed Nagasaki and helped end World War II.
Early in the morning on August 9, 1945, six B-29 bombers took off from an air base on the Pacific Island of Tinian. Major Charles W. Sweeney’s Bockscar carried “Fat Man,” a plutonium bomb of the type tested earlier at Alamogordo and more powerful than the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
JAPAN SURRENDERS
AUGUST 14, 1945
As Emperor Hirohito and his cabinet accepted the surrender terms on August 14, officials on both sides knew Japanese commanders and soldiers would find it a bitter pill to swallow. How could Japan’s proud troops be convinced to lay down their arms and finally end the bloodshed of World War II?
Davidson Sommers’ oral history in the archives of the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum reveals how American and Japanese leaders worked out a last-minute plan to achieve peace.
JAPAN SURRENDERS – PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S PRESS CONFERENCE
AUGUST 14, 1945
THE PRESIDENT [reading]: I have received this afternoon a message from the Japanese Government–
Before I go any further, this will be in the form of releases, so you don’t have to copy it unless you want to –in reply to the message forwarded to that Government by the Secretary of State on August 11. “I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan. In the reply there is no qualification.
THE FORMAL SURRENDER OF JAPAN
SEPTEMBER 2, 1945
It is Sunday, September 2, 1945. Some 280 Allied warships and thousands of troops are staged in Tokyo Bay.
On the deck of one vessel, the battleship USS Missouri, General Douglas MacArthur and 50 other Allied leaders are assembled. It is not a battle they have prepared for, however, but a brief ceremony. The men aboard the Missouri are about to witness Japan’s formal surrender.
PRISONERS OF WAR
SEPTEMBER 4, 1945
To Private Luther D. Bass and the hundreds of other Allied survivors of Tokyo POW Camp #8B, time must have seemed like it slowed to a crawl in early September 1945.
Bass and many of his fellow prisoners of war had been captives of the Japanese for over three years, suffering hunger and forced labor. Now the war was over and they had been evacuated to the town of Onahoma to await liberation. Yet it would take several days for American forces to reach Onahoma. How had Bass survived his captivity, and how would he and his fellow POWs endure their anxious wait for liberation?