AP Historical Hard Drive 2002

In the morning of May 11, 1945, while supporting the Okinawa invasion, the USS Bunker Hill is heavily hit by two Japanese kamikaze planes off the coas...

An U.S. artillery crew opens fire against Japanese positions during the early morning hours of May 11, 1945, as an all-out offensive gets under way, i...

In the morning of May 11, 1945, while supporting the Okinawa invasion, the USS Bunker Hill is hit and severely damaged by two Japanese Kamikaze planes...

Pfc. Paul Ison from the 6th Marine Division dashes forward through Japanese machine-gun fire while crossing a draw on Okinawa, May 10, 1945. After th...

Captured German soldiers pass a Russian-English roadside sign erected by U.S. Ninth Army men as they move to a rear area for internment at Tangermuend...

Fighting men of the U.S. Army's 77th Infantry Division on Ryukyu Island in Japan hear the news of Germany's surrender on May 8 a few yards behind the...

Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill, center, joins the royal family, from left, Princess Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, King George VI, and Prince...

With Japanese grenades exploding around them, U.S. Marines move up a hill on Skyline Ridge, during the invasion of Okinawa, May 7, 1945. (AP Photo)

General Alfred Jodl, center, signs the unconditional surrender of all armed German forces imposed by the Allied Powers, at Supreme Commander Eisenhowe...

A large crowd of Utrecht citizens gathers in the streets of the Dutch city, on May 7, 1945, to welcome the liberating Allied troops in their hometown....

British soldiers of the Allied forces are seen walking past a submarine assembly line inside the Blohm and Voss Shipyards in Hamburg, Germany, on May...

A Japanese Kamikaze bomber misses its target and crashes into the sea next to a light carrier of the U.S. Navy Fleet, on May 4, 1945, during Pacific t...

At liberated German concentration camp Woebbelin near Schwerin, an inmate breaks out in tears as he learns he is not leaving for the hospital with the...

A Japanese suicide bomber blows up next to a British aircraft carrier, in the waters off Ryukyu Islands, on May 4, 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa....

This panoramic view shows a group of German prisoners as they march through the streets of Berlin, on May 2, 1945, in the final days of World War II....

With British General Montgomery, right, looking on, General Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, Commander in Chief of the German fleet, signs a docume...

American G.I.s of the Seventh U.S. Army march past the entrance of the Buergerbraukeller, site of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich, Germany, May 3...

Soldiers of the Soviet Army shake hands with men of the 82nd U.S. Airborne Division at Grabow, in northeastern Germany, as their front lines make cont...

A Japanese Kamikaze plane makes a low-level suicide dive at an Essex-class U.S. Navy carrier, on May 3, 1945. (AP Photo)

One day after the unconditional surrender of all German troops in Italy, Lt. Colonel Woran, chaplain of the 10th Mountain Division, leads a group of A...

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, England, to attend thanksgiving services for the victory in Europe...

Heavily armed Danish soldiers are patroling the streets of Copenhagen after the announcment of Denmark's liberation from German occupation, in May 194...

A U.S. Marine comforts a comrade, who witnessed the death of his buddy, hillside in the Vincinity of Shuri, in May 1945, during the invasion of Okinaw...

Gen. Charles de Gaulle delivers a victory speech to the French Consultative Assembly in the Tribune of the Senate, France's Upper House, in France in...

Servicemen of a demolition crew of the 6th Marine Division watch dynamite charges explode and destroy a Japanese cave, on Okinawa, May 1945. (AP Photo...

U.S.Marines are seen as they transfer a blindfolded Japanese prisoner of war from a submarine returned from war patrol, at an unknown location, in May...

Pressure bandaged after he suffered burns when his ship was attacked by a Japanese kamikaze fighter, this wounded man aboard the hospital ship USS So...

While waiting to be pulled out of five feet of water, the commander of this tank looks on as his driver uses his helmet to empty out the interior of t...

A soldier of the 7th U.S. Army seeks cover behind piled-up debris as he blasts a roadblock in Munich, Germany, in May 1945. (AP Photo)

A U.S. Marine observation plane, under way on its mission to gather information about enemy positions, draws antiaircraft fire from the ground, as it...

Three members of the Frontier Force Rifles of the Indian Army, British Imperial Forces, are seen as they clear the surrounding area of Prome train sta...

Armed partisans look over Benito Mussolini's dead body after it is placed in a wooden coffin following his assassination near Dongo in the Como provin...

This photo shows a group of 12 to 16 year old German boys wearing uniforms of the

Representatives of 50 countries are seen at the U.N. Conference on International Organization to draw up the United Nations Charter, on April 25, 1945...

War-torn Cologne Cathedral stands out of the devastated area on the west bank of the Rhine, in Cologne, Germany, April 24, 1945. The railroad station...

Soldiers of the 55th Armored Infantry Battalion and a tank of the 22nd Tank Battalion move through a smoke filled street in the city of Wernberg, near...

German prisoners of war who surrendered to General Patton's 3rd Army march in an endless line through farmland east of the Rhine, March 26, 1945, in t...

A Japanese bomber starts to roll over as it comes under artillery fire from a U.S. warship, during a battle in the western Pacific, on April 20, 1945...

Silhouetted against the bursting light of the gunfire, an American artillery unit lays down a barrage against Japanese positions during a night attack...

This April 16, 1945 photo shows inmates of the German KZ Buchenwald inside their barrack, a few days after U.S troops liberated this concentration cam...

Two American antitank infantrymen dash past a German gasoline trailer as it explodes in a ball of fire, on the marketplace in Kronach, Germany, on Apr...

A trainload of German V-1 weapons captured by British forces during their swift advance in Germany is shown on April 13, 1945. (AP Photo/British Offi...

About 350 miles from the Japanese mainland, U.S. invasion forces establish a beachhead on Okinawa island, on April 13. 1945. Pouring out war supplies...

Canadian infantrymen of the South Saskatchewan Regiment advance through a Dutch village, on their way to cross the Oranje Canal north of Zwiggelte, Ne...

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, center, inspects paintings in a salt mine at Merkers, near Gotha, where the Nazi German government stored art treasures and...

Canadian infantrymen of the South Saskatchewan Regiment are seen during mopping-up operations around the Oranje Canal, north of Zwiggelte, Netherlands...

This combination of two photographs shows Japanese residents of Okinawa rounded up by American soldiers, on April 10, 1945, during the U.S. invasion o...

After the 7th U.S. Army captured this mammouth German 274-mm railroad gun in an advance near Rentwertshausen, men line up to pose on the barrel, April...

Standing along a roadside, British and American soldiers watch a long line of German captives on their march to a prisoners of war enclosure, at an u...

Infantrymen of the 370th regiment are on their way to climb the mountains of the Tuscan Apennines, near Prato, on April 9, 1945. (AP Photo)