Although in 1944 the war continued in the Pacific, the free world took a moment to pause and celebrate a victory that had pushed back forces trying to subjugate much of Europe and the United Stated to the ideology of fascism.
“The western world has been freed of the evil forces which for five years and longer have imprisoned the bodies and broken the lives of millions upon millions of freeborn men. They have violated their churches, destroyed their homes, corrupted their children, and murdered their loved ones. Our armies of liberation have restored freedom to those suffering peoples, whose spirit and will the oppressor could never enslave.”
– President Harry S. Truman, V-E Day Proclamation