Entertainer Bob Hope performed his regular radio show in front of a military audience at the US Naval Training Facility in Oceanside, California on May 8, 1945. The next day he played a central role in the Victory broadcast on the Armed Forces Radio Service. These performances both took a more somber tone than usual.

When POWs awoke at Stalag Luft I on May 1, 1945, the German guards had disappeared and a hand sewn Stars and Stripes replaced the swastika on the flagpole. The Red Army arrived a day later.

April 17 was a fateful day for Capt. Harold Romm. On April 17, 1943 he was shot down and became a German POW. Two years later, on the same day, he became a free man, liberated from Stalag XIII-D by American troops.

Dancer Patty Thomas was often showcased by her boss and troupe leader Bob Hope as a living embodiment of what American troops were fighting for. Thomas brought levity and youthful femininity to the staging areas of the harshest fighting in the Pacific.

Frances Langford was an inspiring vocalist who devoted much of her wartime career to the entertainment of those in service. She was known as the “GI Nightingale,” and her performances had the power to temporarily transport troops from the battlefield into the arms of their sweethearts.

Mildred V. Payne and Dorothy Seder were just two of the 7.5 million individuals who volunteered with the American Red Cross during World War II.

Jeanette "Nettie" Parker worked as a riveter for Fisher Body Plant Aircraft Division in Memphis, Tennessee from February 1943-July 1945.

On March 6, 1945 when US forces entered Cologne, the Gothic cathedral loomed above the ruins. Army Chaplain and future Archbishop Philip Hannan soon devoted himself to protecting the cathedral.

Jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald's voice soothed and entertained many during World War II. Her records were even sent to a besieged London, where her hit songs kept civilians in air raid shelters occupied during the long, scary hours of the Blitz.

In 1944 and 1945, postal worker turned soldier Wendell Wiley Wolfenbarger wrote his wife Ruby and children frequent letters. Sometimes they were postcards, sometimes V-mails, and others were written "sitting on a box by a wood fire, outside of course, writing on my knee."