The date is known as ve day, or victory in europe day. A conversation with Rick Atkinson, author of the guns at last light. Throughout the world throngs of people hail the end of the war in europe. It is five years and more since hitler marched into poland. Years full of suffering and death and sacrifice. Now the war against germany is won. A grateful nation gives thanks for victory. Hundreds of thousands crowd into american churches to give thanks to god. President truman announced the official surrender. This is a solemn but glorious hour. I wish that franklin d. Roosevelt had lived to see this day. General eisenhower informs me that the forces of germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly all over europe. For this victory we join in offering our thanks to the providence which has guided and sustained us through the dark days of adversity and into light. Much remains to be done. The victory won in the west must now be won in the east. The whole world must be cleansed of the evil from which half of the world has been freed. United, the peaceloving nations have demonstrated in the west that their arms are stronger by far and the might of dictators are the tyranny of military clicks that once called us soft and weak. The power of our people to defend themselves against all enemies will be proved in the pacific war as it was proved in europe. Historic pictures last days of the war in europe show american and Russian Troops as they join to split german armys in two. The United States general rhinehart meets the russian general. A meeting that spelled out certain german defeat. Inside germany itself, the allies sees the famous stadium of nuremberg, scene of numerous nazi meetings. In a symbolic gesture american troops destroy the nazi party emblem. American history tv and washington journal are marking the end of world war ii, the 75th anniversary of the end of world war ii in the europe theater. Ve day, victory in europe day. We welcome historian Rick Atkinson whose final book in the guns of last light published in 2013, the final of the three books focusing on the years of 1944 and 1945. And Rick Atkinson, to get our conversation started on ve day, just a quick time line of where things were and how they came from dday on june 6th, 1944, in late august the liberation of paris in august 25th, 1944, the battle of the bulge in december of that year into january of 1945, and then to ve day. Take us back, Rick Atkinson, to may 7th and 8th of 1945. How did the war end in europe . Well, the war ended with the germans basically deciding hitler having killed himself more than a week earlier that there was no profit in dragging it out with the russians in berlin, the russians murdering civilians, killing soldiers, german soldiers by the hundreds of thousands, so the germans decided that trying to make peace with the western allies, the americans in particular, was their best bet. And they were going to get a better deal from the western allies than from the soviets. So eisenhower had his headquarters in the french champagne town in northeastern france. The germans sent a delegation, there was a lot of palaber about the conditions for a conversation and they were told in no Uncertain Terms that Unconditional Surrender were the only terms by which the war would end. And so general yodel, who was the operations chief for the German Armed Forces showed up with hitlers at eisenhowers headquarters which was in a red brick building and reporters and photograph evers were there. It was 2 00 in the morning on may 7th, 1945, and the articles of surrender had been boiled down to barely 200 words. The whole ceremony with cameras rolling lasted only about 10 minutes. Yodel signed, eisenhower told him he would be personally held responsible for ensuring that the terms of the capitulation were honored and that was that. Now it was going to go into effect the next day, may 8th, in order to give time to alert german uboat crews in the atlantic and german detachments in norway. The soviets felt it was important to have a surrender ceremony on german soil. They dont want the germans to be able to say, as they have in world war i, they had never been defeated and never capitulated in germany proper and they insisted there be another surrender ceremony in a suburb of berlin, which happened on may 9th. So the soviets, now the russians, considered that to be the ve day but for the rest of the world the surrender went into effect on may 8th and that was the end of the war in europe. Now there is still a war in the pacific and that certainly had a moderating effect on the utter jubilation that would have taken place otherwise. No one knew how long that war was going to go. On that time line, from dday, june 6th, 1944, did the final victory in europe, base on your research of u. S. Forces and british forces, did that happen sooner than they thought or take longer than they thought . 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 is why they wouldnt give up. Why they continued to fight. Why one little town, one medium sized city or even big cities continued to resist. There were 10,400 american soldiers killed in action in april 1945 in germany. That is almost as many as were killed in june of 1944, the month of invasion. So it was awful virtually to the last gunshot. And as a consequence, there was a group consternation about whether they were going to surrendering whether every last german soldier was going to have to be killed and whether more would have to die and of course whether more allied soldiers would have to die. There was hope the war would end sooner. May 8th turned out to be the day. Our guest is Rick Atkinson, it is the 75th anniversary of ve day. We would love to hear from you, your questions ant comments. Here are how the lines are broke up. 2027488001, mountain and pacific and for those of you that are world war ii or veterans call in 2027488002. It is alarming to read the death tolls n. One story you write about the training, just the training for dday alone. There was one accident in the training that killed 700 soldiers in that training accident. And looking at the statistics of how many people died in overall, military deaths in world war ii, all the deaths of soviet soldiers. And they had 190 million people, and its estimated the total soviet deaths were 26 million. That is a staggering percent, 13 of the total population. Our losses were bad enough. We had 291,000 killed in action. A little more than 400,000 as you mentioned all deaths including accidents and disease and so on. That is about onethird of 1 of the American Population of 130 million during world war ii. As staggering as they 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 and thats a death every three seconds for six years, and that is an idea of the magnitude, the greatest catastrophe selfinflicted in human history. And the war ended after the death of fdr in warm springs, gather, on april 12th of 1945, hairy truman, the president on ve day, what was the effect stateside when that news came . It was a great shock. Anyone looking at news reel footage could see that president roosevelt was not a healthy man. He been dying for some months. He had a very arduous trip to first malta for a conference with churchill and then they flew to yalta on the black sea for a conference with joseph stalin, the soviet leader and anyone who even today looks at pictures who could tell this man was dying. His Blood Pressure was in the stratosphere, he had all kinds of health problems. So he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage april 12th, 1945. Right after lunch. The word spreads through the country very quickly by Late Afternoon virtually all americans are aware of it. Its a shock to everyone. Hes been president for more than 12 years and our war president. Hes the president through the darkest days of the depression. There were young men in uniform with very little memory of a time when roosevelt was not their leader and now theyre commanderinchief. So no one knew who harry truman was. An obscure senator from missouri and had been a captain in world war i. Hes a bit of a cipher in the eyes of most americans and the notion that hes going to step in and fill these very large shoes that roosevelt has left behind is something that a lot of people had difficulty comprehending. We have a lot of calls waiting for you, Rick Atkinson. Lets go first to larry in gallop, new mexico. Good morning. Caller yes, good morning. My father was a navajo code talker in the south pacific. In addition, on your research i wanted to know how much about or the role of the american indian, the la cota, sioux, comanches and the hopi, how much on your research have you done on them if any, what was the role during the war. Thanks for your call. Thanks to your dad. American indians were important and they had a tradition of being warriors and that is critical when you are trying to put together an army. As you mention there were code talkers, navajo and others who had their own language and it was assumed correctly that if a navajo was talking to another navajo on the radio, that even if the japanese that we are talking about the Pacific Theater in this case, could eavesdrop and hear that conversation which they could, they werent going to be able to decode it because very few japanese spoke navajo so the code talkers were important for operational security. I think there was also a sense that with American Indians and 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. And its a painful process getting there. To acknowledging there is a rightful role in combat unit for black americans. That black americans could be excellent Fighter Pilots as they showed as the Tuskegee Airmen in alabama who got into combat in europe showed. So i think for the native americans it was a feeling that first of all theyve got some practical skills that are useful, and second that it is an affirmation that this is a pan american war. Salva for in annapolis, maryland, welcome. Caller yes, hello. My dad fought in world war ii and had a couple of brothers and a couple in europe and other uncle who fought in the pacific in the navy. A couple of questions, my dad was a Second Generation italian american. It appears that the prejudice against italian americans was much less than against japanese americans and im wondering if that was true and im wondering why. And the second question, dropping of the atomic bomb probably is 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. Okay, thank you. Well thanks for the call and the questions. Yes, i think it is fair to say that the prejudices against the italian americans were considerably less than against japanese americans. The italians of course were our adversary, at least until 1943 when they switched sides and became our ally. But the italians had not launched the kind of attack that had occurred at pearl harbor the japanese struck in december of 1941. I think there is also a racial component to it, frankly. I think that there was a it was easier to dislike asians and the japanese specifically. So of course they were treated dreadfully. And we were just talking about native americans in the war and there were japanese americans who fought valiantly in italy and france during world war ii they were exceptionally capable, ferocious fighters. And they had something to prove because at home there were tens of thousands of japanese who had been inattorneyed in camps. And treated as second class citizens but as noncitizens. With respect to the atomic bombs, yes, i think that the fact that the two atomic bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki brought an end to the war in the pacific probably saved hundreds of thousands of american lives. When ve day occurs on may 8th, 1945, one of the reasons that the jubilation was not more frenetic than it was is that the battle for okinawa is occurring precisely then. It is a cave by cave blood letting and this foreshadowed what the toll is going to be in attacking the japanese home islands directly. There were estimates that american casualties could rise as much as to 1 million if that were required. And of course the atomic bombs and when ve day occurs in may of 1945, no one knows about the atomic bombs except a small group of physicists and others in new mexico. But no one knows whether even they are not certain whether it is going to work. So those bombs, horrible as they were and in my estimation brings the war to an absolute truncated end, appropriately it saves Many American lives, it saves even more japanese lives. The 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. So the atomic bombs saved a lot of heartache. Were talking about the end of word war ii, the 75th anniversary of ve day and join us is pete from davidson, oklahoma. Caller hello. Good morning. Youre on the air. Caller thank you. Yes, i was over there on may the 6th, 1945 and we got on the ship on may 15th heading for the pacific. And we stopped by the United States, was training and flying b24s was going to train on b29s for a couple of weeks and go to the pacific. And during that period of time is when they dropped the bomb that ended the war in the pacific. But we bombed all of europe from a b24 base in mandera, italy. Great to have you with us and thanks for your story. And Rick Atkinson, how quickly was the military able to pivot to focus on the Pacific Theater . Well, the commanders in europe and of course theyre civilian masters back in washington 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. Was it fair for those who had been fighting from north africa beginning in 1942 and then in italy in 43 and 44 and then in western europe for them to fight in the pacific. So there were plans that had been put together, there were, in fact, units being shifted as he just said in may of 1945, they were getting ready to retrain for the assault on the japanese homeland. The b29 he mentioned was the newest of the four engine long range bombers that had been doing extraordinary work devastating japan. B29s were used to drop the two atomic bombs. So there was a belief that you were going to have take a good portion of the European Force leaving some behind as an army of occupation, but the majority of it was going to end up in the pacific in one form or another. And in your weekend piece in the wall street journal there is a photo of eisenhower flashing the v for victory pens at the signing ceremony. Rick atkinson, at one of your early interviews at cspan in 2002, you said in a different photograph of ike that there is a photograph reflected a certain buoyancy of spirit that i think served him well. You write in your final book, the guns at last light, that there his fellow commanders, some of the other allied commanders were not confident that ike was necessarily the commander type. Well, there were frictions, there is no doubt about it and the british in particular had doubts about eisenhower. Not all of them. Sof of them revered him. He had difficulties really through the entire final year of the war with field Marshal Bernard montgomery, a very difficult character it must be said. So there were those who had doubts about eisenhower, there were those who had doubts about him when he became the theater commander in the mediterranean in late 1942. He never heard a shot fired in anger. He and his west point class both missed world war i, they had not been deployed. So there was a feeling who was this guy and why is he the one to be the supreme commander. My feeling is i lived with Dwight Eisenhower metaphorically for 15 years and my admiration for him grew every year during that span. He was an extraordinarily capable war leader. He was an extremely capable political general in that his primary job was to hold together this fractious allied coalition. Eventually there are more than 50 countries in what Franklin Roosevelt called the United Nations fighting with the United States. And eisenhower was brilliant about Holding Together that coalition against all of the centrifugal forces trying to pull apart every wartime coalition. So eisenhowers laurels at the end of the war i think are fairly earned. He showed himself to be a capable allied commander and that big smile of his which one of his subordinates said was worth at least an army corp in morale terms was fairly earned when we get to may 8th, 1945. Lets hear from tom next, saint petersburg, florida. Tom, youre on thor. Caller hello. My name is tom willis and im calling is i often wondered who engineered the end of the war, was it admiral dornus and secondly did he honestly believe throughout his entire career that his losses in the atlantic were not caused by the anemic machine and thirdly what happened to him at the end of the war . Well that is a lot of questions. Admiral doanus was the commander of the german navy at the end of the war. There wasnt much of a german navy left to command by that point. The german submarine force had been almost completely destroyed by may of 1945. In terms of who engineered the end of war, well, there were conversations among those who were still surviving in berlin, he was actually to the north to the northwest of berlin, about how to go about contacting the allies and how to go about bringing this catastrophe to a close. Hitler having killed himself on april 30th had essentially tried to pull the temple do