The first memorial erected to commemorate U.S.prisoners of war executed by the Nazis during the battle of the bulge (mostly elements of the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion (FAOB), executed by the Kampfgruppe Peiper (part of the 1st SS Panzer Division). This was also known as the Massacre at Baugnez, or the Malmedy Massacre. A wooden cross and a sign reading 'USA - Belgium. To the prisoners of war of overseas who liberated the East districts and were the victims of Nazis cruelty." The wooden cross at the monument to commemorate the massacre of 115 American prisoners at Baugnez on December 17th 1944 during the Battle of Bulge, in World War 2.
Allied campaign against the Axis in 1944 during World War II. Exteriors of a building in Tehran, Iran where the Tehran Conference took place in 1943. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill seated outside the building after the conference. A map depicts United States campaign against the Japanese in the Pacific Theater. U.S. troops land at the Marshal Islands. Troops fire and advance in Palau islands. Soldiers wade through water. Flakes burst and explosions occur at sea near Saipan. U.S. troops advance inland in Guam. A blind soldier walks.
World War II film shows workers surrounding a completed B-29 bomber parked on ramp of what appears to be the Boeing plant on Sea Island, Canada. Film clip reads: "Canada Builds B-29s for U.S." (Note: Boeing of Canada, headquartered at Vancouver, B.C., built a huge manufacturing factory on Sea Island to build aircraft for the war effort. In 1944 Boeing began to manufacture the mid-sections of B-29 fuselages there, including bomb bays for the bomber. These sections were then trucked to Renton, Washington where they were incorporated into final assembled aircraft. However, this clip shows a fully assembled B-29 that may have been flown here for something like worker morale purposes.)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, looking frail, after his election to a 4th term, late in 1944. Newspapers announce his death, on April 12, 1945. View from high above, of funeral procession for Franklin D. Roosevelt. Crowds of mourners line sidewalks in Washington, DC, along the funeral route. Members of the military, in the crowd, salute as the flag-covered coffin of the President passes. Military pallbearers carry the coffin into the White House for a funeral service in the East Room. On April 15, 1945, Pallbearers carry Roosevelt’s coffin to a gravesite at the Roosevelt family home, Springwood, in Hyde Park, New York. Eleanor Roosevelt at President Roosevelt’s gravesite (4097 Albany Post Rd, Hyde Park, NY 12538, United States) with her children, including sons, James and Elliott, both in military uniforms.
German civilian Matthias Gierens, a 37 year old railroad worker, is hanged in Rheinbach Germany for the August 15, 1944 murder of a downed American flyer, who was later identified as U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lieutenant Lester E. Reuss, from Forsythe, Montana. Reuss was the navigator on U.S. Army B-17 bomber #42-31183 which was downed by German aircraft after it attacked the Airdrome at Wiesbaden, Germany. Gierens and three other German civilian men, Peter Kohn, Peter Back, and Matthias Krein, were convicted on June 2, 1945 in Ahrweiler, Germany, for the murder of the American airman after his parachute landing near Priest, Germany. The trial was the first Allied trial in Germany of civilians charged with a war crime. Military police are seen escorting Gierens toward the gallows in a prison yard in Rheinbach. A German Catholic priest performs the rites. U.S military officer reads charges as Gierens is readied for execution (the officer is possibly Lt. Col J.V. Roddy, of San Francisco, who was in charge of the hanging). Trap door opens and Gierens is hung. The U.S. Army executioners were Master Sgt. John C. Woods, a former Texas State executioner, and Staff Sgt. Thomas Robinson, of Bronx, New York. Witnesses present included seven U.S. Lieutenant Colonels and one British officer, a number of Military Police, news correspondents, and photographers.
Decoration of a technical sergeant of U.S. Army in Darmstadt, Olm Area soon after end of World War II in Europe. Soldiers lined up. An aircraft taxiing on a field. Commanding-General of 7th U.S. Army General Wade Haislip presents Congressional Medal of Honor to T/Sgt (Technical Sergeant) Charles H. Coolidge of Signal Mountain, Tennessee for outstanding duty with 141st Infantry, 36th Division the "Lost Battalion" in October 1944. Troops and Honor Guard parade along field.
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