Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal V-E Day 75th Annive

Of paris. The battle of the bulbs in december that year into january of 1945, and then, to victory day. Take us back to may 7 and eight of 1945. How did the war end in europe . Guest well, the war ended with the germans they sickly decided germans basically decided that there was no profit in dragging it out with the russians in berlin. The russians murdering civilians , killing german shoulders by the hundreds german soldiers by the hundreds of thousands. The germans decided it was time to make peace with the western allies, the americans in particular, both their best bet because they were going to get a better deal from their western allies then the soviets. Had his third headquarters in northeastern france. Delegation sent a about what the conditions would be for conversation. They were told that Unconditional Surrender were the only terms by which the war was in. Chief ofhe operations the German Armed Forces showed headquarters,ers at the former technical college. Reporters and photographers where they are. It was 2 00 in the morning on may 7, 1945, and the articles of downnder had been brought to less than 300 words. The whole ceremony with cameras rolling lasted only about 10 minutes. The oval sign, eisenhower told them that he would be personally held responsible, ensuring that the terms of the capitulation were honored, and that was that. It went into effect next day, may 8. They had time to alert crews in the atlantic and german detachment in norway. The soviets felt it was important to have a surrender ceremony on german soil. They did not want the germans to say, as they had in world war i, that they had never been defeated and capitulated in germany proper, so they appeal to yet another surrender berlin, and a suburb of which happened on may 9. Now the russians consider that day, but to the rest of the world, the surrender went into effect on may 8, and that was the end with the war on europe. But there was still the war on the pacific, and that had a moderating effect on the utter jubilation that would have taken place otherwise. Host on that timeline from the did the final944, victory in europe, based on your research of u. S. Forces and british forces, did that happen sooner than they thought, or did it take longer than they thought. They thought . Guest it took longer in the sense that after the battle of the bulge ended at the end of january of 1945, there was a widespread understanding that the germans could not recover from this catastrophe. That they had lost the war. What no one in the west could understand was why they would not give of . Why did they continue to fight . Mediumsize city or big cities continue to resist . There were 10,400 american soldiers killed in action in april 1945 in germany. That is almost as many that were killed in june of 1944, the month of invasion. Was as a consequence, there was great consternation really about whether they were going to surrender, every last german soldier would have to be killed and whether more german civilians would have to die. Alliedcourse, would more soldiers have to die . There had been hope that the war would in no there had been hope that the war would end sooner. Host our guess is Rick Atkinson. It is the 75th anniversary of ve day. We would love to hear from you. For the eastern and central time zones. 202 7488001, mountain and pacific. And for those of you who are world war ii veterans or families, if your parents served in world war ii, we ask you to call on 202 7488002. , it is a alarming to read the death tolls. You spoke one story about the training for the day alone. There was an accident that killed 700 soldiers. Looking at the statistics of how many people died and overall military deaths, 417,000 u. S. Deaths. On the soviet side, 8. 8 million to 10. 7 million soviet soldiers. That is not just civilian deaths. 190t the soviet union had million people. Total deaths were 26 million. That is a staggering percentage of 13 or 40 of their total population. We had 291,000 killed in action. A little more than 400,000 as you mentioned, all of this including accidents and disease. That is about one third of 1 of the American Population of 130 million during world war ii. As staggering as those numbers are for us, they are monumental for the soviets in particular. The germans lose about 7 million people. About 60 Million Deaths worldwide in world war ii. That is a death every three seconds for six years. It gives you an idea of the magnitude. It is the greatest catastrophe selfinflicted catastrophe in history. Host and the war ending three weeks after the death of fdr in of 1945. N april 12 harry truman, the president on ve day. What was the effect stateside when that news came . Guest it was a great shock. Anyone looking at newsreel footage is could see that president was about was not a healthy man. Feared hent roosevelt to meet with malta churchill and then they flew to meet with the soviet meal or leader, stalin. Those pictures do tell, here is a man who is dying. His Blood Pressure was in the stratosphere and he had all kinds of health problems. Hemorrhage at his cottage in warm springs, georgia , april 12, 1945. The war spreads through the country quickly after lunch and by late afternoon, all americans are aware of it. It is a shock to all of it. He had been president for more than 12 years. He is our war president. He was the president for the days of the depression. There were young men in uniform who had very little memory of the time when roosevelt was not their leader and now their commanderinchief. , aning who harry truman was obscure senator from missouri, he had been a captain in the artillery in world war i. He is a bit of a cipher in the eyes of most americans with the notion that he is going to step in and fill these very large shoes that roosevelt has left behind, something that a lot of people had difficulty copper heading. Host we have a lot of calls waiting. Lets go first to larry in mexico. Good morning. Caller good morning. My father was in the south pacific. On your research, i wanted to know what the role was of the , how much onan your research have you done on them, if any and what was their role during the war . Thank. Guest thanks for the call and thanks to your dad. American indians were important. They had a tradition of being warriors. That was critical when you are trying to put together an army. Wereu mentioned, there code talkers and they had their own language and it was assumed correctly that if a navajo talking to another navajo on the radio, that even if the japanese, and we are talking about the Civic Theater in this case, could eavesdrop and hear that conversation, which they could, they would not have been able to decode it because very few japanese spoke navajo. The code talkers were important for operational security. I think there was also a sense with native americans as part of the force that it really was a comprehensive American Force in the same way that we wanted all ethnicities to be represented by 1945. It is a painful process of getting there to acknowledging that there is a rightful role in combat units for black americans. T black amyris can be black americans can be excellent fighters as the Tuskegee Airmen who got into combat showed. For native americans, it was a feeling that first of all they have practical skills that were second, it is an affirmation that this is a panamerican war. From annapolis, maryland. Welcome. Caller yes. Our dad fought in world war ii in the pacific. He had Four Brothers lost. He had another uncle who fought in the civic in the navy. My dad was a secondgeneration italian american. Against italian americans is less against japaneseamerican. Im wondering why that was true. And the second question, dropping the atomic bomb is probably the reason im talking to you today and wondering how that impact had on the outcome of the war and the ability of more american soldiers to survive. Thank you. Host thank you. Guest thanks for the call and the question. Yes, i think it is fair to say that the prejudices against italian americans were considerably less than they were against japanese americans. Italians were our adversaries up until 1943 and they switched sides and became our ally. The italians did not launch the kind of attack that occurred at pearl harbor in 1941. I think there is a racial component to it. To dislikewas easier asians, japanese specifically. Of course, they were treated dreadfully. We were just talking about native americans in the force. Japanese americans who fought valiantly in italy and france during world war ii, they were exceptionally capable and ferocious fighters. They had something to prove because back home there had been tens of thousands of japanese who had been interned in camps. Only secondclass citizens, but as noncitizens. In respect to the atomic bombs, yes, i think that the two atomic bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki brought an end to the war in the pacific and probably saved hundreds of thousands of american lives. May 8,e day occurs on 1945, one of the reasons the jubilation is not as it was is that the battle is occurring precisely. It was a cave by cave bloodletting. What it would be in attacking the japanese islands directly. There were estimates that american casualties could rise to one million if that were required. When ve day occurs in 1945, no one knows about the atomic bombs except they small group of businesses in new mexico. No one knows whether it is going to work. Those bombs, as horrible as they were, brings the war to an absolute truncated end. It saves Many American lives. It saved even more japanese lives. Russians were ready to come in. The war was going to expand in the pacific because the russians had agreed to be part of it. The atomic bombs saved a lot of heartache. Host we are talking about the end of world war ii and the european theater. The 75 anniversary of ve day heath from us is davidson, oklahoma. Caller hello. Host good morning. You are on the air. Caller thank you. May 6,was over there on 1945. 15got on a ship on may headed for the pacific. And we stopped by the United States. We would fly in v 24s and we would train on b 29 for a couple of weeks and go into the pacific. During that period of time, they dropped the bomb and ended the war in the pacific. Theombed all of europe from base in italy. Heath, great to have you with us. Thank you for your story. Rick atkinson, how quickly was the military to pivot the focus on the Pacific Theater . Europethe commanders in had been thinking about how to take a good portion of that force and move it to the pacific and how you would do that and who would go and what had failed for those who have been fighting in north africa in 1942 and in italy in 1943 and 1944. And for them to have to find the pacific. There were plans that had been put together. There were units being shifted as he just said in may of 1945. They were getting ready to retrain for the assault on the japanese homeland. 29 he mentioned was the first of long range bombers ,oing extraordinary work devastating japan. They were used to drop those two atomic bombs. Ares the belief that you going to have to take a good portion of that european force, leaving some behind as an army of occupation. But the majority of it was going to end up in the pacific. Host in the wall street journal, there is a photo of eisenhower flashing the victory pans at the signing ceremony. Rick atkinson, one of your early interviews in 2002 for your first book, you said that in a different photograph that the photograph reflected a buoyancy of spirit that served him well. You are right you write in your final book that his fellow commander and some of the allied commanders were not confident that he was the commander type. The british in particular had doubts about eisenhower. Not all of them. Some of them revered him. He had difficulties through the. Ntire final year of the war the senior british commander in europe, a very difficult character, it must be said. There were those who had doubts about eisenhower. There were those who had doubts when he had became the commander in the mediterranean in 1942. He and his west point classmate had missed world war i, they had not been deployed. There was a feeling that here is this guy and why is he the one to be the supreme commander. Eisenhowerh dwight. Etaphorically for 15 years he was an extraordinarily capable leader. He was an extremely capable general and his primary job was to hold together this allied coalition. Eventually there were more than 50 countries in what was called the United Nations fighting with the United States. Eisenhower was brilliant at Holding Together that coalition against all of the centripetal forces that tried to pull apart every wartime coalition. At the ends honors of the war are fairly earned. He showed himself to be a capable commander and that big smile of his which one of the subordinates said was worth an army corps in morale terms. Host was here next from st. Petersburg, florida. Tom, you are on the air. Caller my name is tom and the reason im calling is i often wondered who engineered the end of the war. Was it admiral dorn is and secondly, did he believe throughout his entire career that his losses in the atlantic were not caused by the anemic machine. Thirdly, what happened to him at the end of the war. That is a lot of questions. He was the commander of the german navy at the end of the war. There was not much of a german navy to command at that point. The german submarine force had been almost completely destroyed by may of 1945. In terms of ingenuity at the end of the war, there were conversations among those who were still surviving in berlin and northwest of berlin about how to go about contacting the allies and how to go about bringing this catastrophe to a close. Hitlers having killed himself 30th, hannah tried to pull the temple down around him as he perished. Had tried. But not everyone was willing to take that route, not everyone was suicidal. Been an agreement that they would send a delegation to allied headquarters in montgomery. And then they end up at eisenhowers headquarters. It up as they go along. They are very aware that every day that passes, there are more germans who fall under soviet control. This they are determined to avoid. They are trying to stall as long as they can to allow germans to flee westward and they are fleeing westward by the hundreds of thousands and eventually the aliens in order to avoid being under soviet control. The final decision is made that we are going to give up and conceded to the allied demand of unconditional render, at that point Unconditional Surrender. Host steve from rhode island. Caller good morning. I would like to make a comment. The war was decided on the eastern front. The western front was a skirmish compared to the eastern front. There would not have been any western front, there would have been a settlement. The most important issue i want to state is the russian crime when they entered berlin and over 2 million german women were raped by those communist animals. And mygermanamerican father is a germanamerican who served in the italian campaign. Host steve, we will get a response from Rick Atkinson. Guest thank you for the call, steve. There were war crimes of the first order committed by the soviets in berlin and all of Eastern Europe as they overran into thed pushed eastern precincts of the german empire. The ways that the soviets were ofng that besides the lack discipline was the feeling that the depravity that the germans had visited on the soviet Union Beginning with the invasion in 1941 and extending right on german the end of the was to pay in kind. Was out of control in ways that no one can perceive at the beginning and this is a good example of the atrocities the germans committed or repaid probably with interest either russians. By the russians. The weightnly carry of the war for all of the allies. Soviet soldiers killed nine german soldiers for every one who was killed by british and american troops combined. I mentioned 26th millions dead. It dad was vital to have them remain as part of it. Host it is the 75th anniversary of ve day. ,e are joined by Rick Atkinson the author of the liberation trilogy. It is a three book series on the war in the european theater. More of your calls and comments coming up momentarily. We are joined next by senator roberts of kansas, chair of the eisenhower memorial commission. Senator, we saw you yesterday on the floor with your eye like ike button i like button. You were a youngster when that happened. Tell us about that. Guest actually, the button says i still like ike. We handed them out at the congressional lunch yesterday. They were a hot item. I think most of my memories came when i was 16 and i got to go to the Republican Convention in 1952 where eisenhower won on the first ballot as opposed to robert taft. And then again during the inaugural and those are the only times i personally met the man. That was back in kansas. I remember that day as i was swinging on the front porch and my mom came in with tears in her eyes and she said we have andated hitlers hitler. I asked her, does that mean dad can come home. Not at that time. He was in the pacific. Jima. A marine in iwo at any rate, the one thing i remember about him, you knew he came into the room even though your back was to him. He had that presence. He had a very ready case. A wonderful smile. Host we are talking about eisenhowers role in the victory in europe. We are talking to you about the eisenhower memorial. General eisenhower led the allies to victory in europe and served two terms as president. Why has it taken so long for a memorial to be created in washington for president eisenhower . Guest it is amazing how many groups that you have to go through, the National Capital Planning Commission and the fine arts council, etc. You have to raise the money and have federal funds. You have to have all members of the family on board. There were changes, i was the second german way back chairman. Fromedal of honor winner the senator from hawaii and senator ted stevens, two veterans who pushed very hard on this. If you take a look at the memorials, not many are built on a rapid basis. It takes a stepbystep. Simple. Ess is not you have site selection, design approvals, construction, it is a monumental undertaking. We arethat terrible pun. Thrilled to see the hardwood come to fruition. It is done and all