Jonathan Parshall and Senior Director of Educational Travel Sarah Kirksey provide an overview of Victory in the Pacific: Japan and Okinawa.

The 17th International Conference on World War II, a program of the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at The National WWII Museum, was presented by the Pritzker Military Foundation on behalf of Pritzker Military Museum & Library, with additional support from the Gen. Raymond E. Mason Jr. Distinguished Lecture Series on World War II Endowment Fund and the George P. Shultz Forum on World Affairs.

If the US and its western Allies wanted to win this war as rapidly as possible, they couldn’t sit around and wait: not for a naval blockade, or for strategic bombing to work, or for the Soviets.

In the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, 27 Marines and sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for action on Iwo Jima. No other campaign surpassed that number.

In the four years of war, Americans on the home front were asked to do their part and to go without certain items for the sake of the war effort. For residents of New Orleans, World War II also meant going without Mardi Gras.