THE VICTORY

the 5th army in Italy the first army with elements already on German soil the ninth the third and the seventh all fighting beside British and Free French and other allied forces in the Pacific the 6th army and other elements in Burma General Joseph Stilwell's command of American British and Chinese jungle fighters were driving back to Japanese opening the way for completion of the Ledo Road which our army engineers were building as a land supply route to the embattled Chinese by way of India in Russia German armies were in retreat before massive Soviet Kadri tanks to use an old army expression we were clubbing the enemy on all fronts but it was no grand march no sudden sweep to victory for as the aggressors were driven bank their resistance increased along with mounting desperation we paid a price for every mile we took the battle for Germany was on for the Germans their Gerda Demuro the twilight of the Gods had come our armies were battering at the gates of the Nazi homeland general Hodges first army drove through the vaunted Siegfried line mile upon mile of concrete fortification and anti-tank in place through the city of Aachen two years and seven months after General MacArthur had left the Philippines he kept his promise to return on the 20 of October 1944 his forces invaded the island of Leyte this too was to be no easy parade to victory our soldiers would face an enemy who would fight as their leaders ordered them to fight to the death they wanted it that way they were to get what they asked for seven days after MacArthur landed on late a the United States third and seventh fleets dealt the Japanese Navy its death blow in the battle for the late a golf you the curtain was rising on the last fast-moving act of the drama of World War two general patton's third army took Mets the head was the nearby SAR Basin Germany second most important industrial district on the other side of the world army b-29 bombers from new bases on Saipan showered bombs on Tokyo a fiery rain from the heavens to avenge Pearl Harbor the campaign on late a was going well as our forces moved on capturing the Japanese face at ormoc along the west coast other forces landed on mindoro island with no losses while General MacArthur's forces were driving forward in the Philippines Patton's Third Army penetrated the Tsar and drove on across the Tsar River a record-breaking fleet of 1600 United States heavy bombers blasted Frankfurt and other German cities the Nazis were reaping a bitter and devastating harvest from the seeds they had once owned from the air now the very perpetrators of aerial blitzkrieg saw their own cities reduced to rubble to the millions of Nazi war victims here at last was a measure of retribution against their merciless executioner's but on the ground some of the bitterest fighting of the war took place on the cologne play our push toward the industrial war was resisted every step of the way then on the sixteenth of December 1944 the German counter-offensive struck German Field Marshal von Rundstedt suddenly sent a dozen elite division smashing into the Ardennes sector you von rundstedt had cast the dice for high stakes crossing the Meuse river driving toward the edge and trying to cut the allied communication lines from Antwerp to the front line if our lines of communication could be cut the fate of our armies might be in the balance this was the Battle of the Bulge combat and non-combat troops were suddenly and necessarily fighting side-by-side in worsening weather weapons grabbing their weapons they dug in and responded to the old military axiom of hanging on to buy time until reinforcements would come General Eisenhower took immediate action to meet the crisis he put the first to ninth Army's north of the bulge under command the field marshal Montgomery's 21st Army Group with orders to attack from the north patton's third army was to attack from the south to Airborne Division's were rushed in the one good first was ordered to hold the vital communication center at best thought it was during this action in besieged best or the general McAuliffe who was then commanding the 100 first made his famous reply to the German demand that he surrender that reply was reportedly one word long nuts if the enemy is not immediately understand the meaning of McAuliffe's typical American reply the action which follows undoubtedly convinced him that it meant that the Americans had no intention of surrender just six days after pond runescape had launched his counter-offensive elements of Patton's Third Army racing up from the south struct the German on his southern flank the pressure was off the 100 first airborne the first American army attacked from the north after the British struck the bows on the west the 3rd army smashed on North up with the first time then the weather clear and our planes took to the air blasting on rune stats forces you the Battle of the Bulge was soon over the enemy was retreated the Germans had thrown their last big sunday punch of the war while the Battle of the Bulge was going on in Europe the 8th army commanded by General Robert L eichelberger was battling stiff Japanese resistance on leaf a the fight for late a would continue for months until nearly 50,000 fanatical Japanese would be annihilated our forces were spreading out in the Philippines 6th army troops landed on Luzon in the Lin guy engulfed and swept southward to capture Tarla only 65 miles from Manila 15 days later men of the 1st Cavalry Division fought their way into Manila the capture of Manila included the Santo Tomas prison camp along with the Filipino people these prisoners had waited in long and quiet agony for this moment of liberation of all the liberated peoples in the world none showed more gratitude than did the Filipinos they well knew we had come not for conquest but to keep a solemn promise to return and destroy the aggressor who had taken over their homeland in a war of conquest less than two years later the Philippines would be given complete independence as a sovereign nation by the United States 13 days after the fall of Manila our airborne troops landed on Corregidor two years and nine months after the Japanese had hauled down our flag it had been a long and bloody Road but we had returned who and where were those who once had said the American was no soldier that he would not fight all around the world climactic events were swiftly gaining momentum our ninth army under general Simpson crossed the Rhine on the 2nd of march four days later general Hodges 1st army occupied cologne four days after that 300 of our super fortresses blasted Tokyo by the 17th of the same month General Patton's Third Army had taken koblenz the next day and half a world away our troops invaded panay island in the central Philippines three days after that patton's 3rd army crossed the Rhine four days later general eichelberger zete army was landing on Sabu and the Philippines less than a week after that on the first of april nineteen forty-five United States Tenth Army under general simon buckner invaded Okinawa on the 11th of the same month the 2nd Armored Division of the 9th army reached the l only 63 miles from Berlin the third captured coburg on the twelfth of April death took the commander-in-chief President Franklin Delano Roosevelt he had lived to see the triumphant advances of American Arms but fate had denied him the satisfaction the final victory would bring less than a month after President Roosevelt's death germany surrendered Hitler was dead by his own hand only a few days before Mussolini had been killed by Italian partisans to his home Shores General Eisenhower returned in triumph but in the Pacific a war was still going on a big and bitterly fought war with the end not yet in sight Okinawa was a bloody battleground as our 10th army was finding out it took us 82 days of continuous fighting to take Okinawa the attacks on our Navy took a heavy toll but we fought back never letting on all the military might of the United States would now be concentrated on the Japanese homeland a tough job lay ahead a job that would take men and equipment our entire military strength was now aimed at the one remaining axis partner our military planners estimated that in an all-out assault upon Japan itself our invasion forces would probably suffer a million and a half casual but a new and terrifying force had come into the world which was to prevent those million and a half casualties the atomic bomb two of these awesome weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought Japan to her knees on the second of September 1945 Japanese officials signed the articles of formal surrender on the battleship missouri in tokyo bay the formal surrender by the Japanese on the second of sep tember 1945 marked the end of the shooting in World War two it was a momentous historic event but there was one other that followed which might not have been as historic to the world at large but it was probably the most rewarding moment in the life of a final soldier general Jonathan Wainwright who had been forced to surrender Corregidor had been rescued by US army paratroopers from a prisoner of war camp in Manchuria and blown back to be present at the formal surrender on the battleship Missouri a day or two after that he was present at the surrender of general Yamashita and the remnants of the Japanese army in the Philippines it must have been a great day for Jonathan Mayhew skinny Wainwright west point class of 1906 American soul