Graphic from Ohio Army National Guard Historical Collections
V-E Day at 75: The Ohio National Guard in the European Theater
Compiled by Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Mann, Ohio Army National Guard Historian
On May 8, 1945, the world celebrated Victory in Europe, or V-E Day, marking the end of World War II in the European Theater of Operations. There were 11 units from the Ohio National Guard that served in the European Theater during the war. In his V-E Day proclamation, President Harry Truman said: “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.”
