# 2981 - 1995 32c World War II: Victory at Last

U.S. #2981
1995 World War II

• Fifth and last souvenir sheet issued to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of World War II
• Includes 10 stamps plus a world map

 Stamp Category:  Commemorative
Series:  World War II
Value:  32¢ (Denomination of each individual stamp)
First Day of Issue:  September 2, 1995
First Day City:  Honolulu, Hawaii
Quantity Issued (if known):  100,000,000
Printed by:  Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method:  Offset, Intaglio
Format:  Sheetlets of 10 (arranged in 2 strips of 5, one across the top and one across the bottom of the sheetlet, with world map in between)
Perforations:  11.1 (Eureka off-line perforator)
Tagging:  Overall, large block covering stamps and part of selvage

 Why the stamp was issued:  This souvenir sheet was issued to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of World War II.  It was the last in a series of five that were issued over the course of five years.

About the stamp design:  There were many topics the USPS wanted to cover when commemorating World War II, but those planning the series didn’t want to issue a large number of stamps.  It was decided a souvenir sheet format would best highlight the main events of the war.  In order for all the souvenir sheets to have a uniform design, the same artist, William Bond, and art director, Howard Paine, were assigned to the entire project.

One stamp on this sheetlet caused a huge stir when designs were revealed and a mushroom cloud to symbolize the A-bomb was included in the seten. Japan was outraged at the lack of sympathy and some Americans even felt it was unnecessary. The United States Postal Service held that the Atomic Bomb was a huge turning point and helped to hasten the end of the war. While that was true, President Clinton asked that the stamp design be changed. Therefore, the Atomic Bomb stamp was changed to President Truman announcing the end of the war.

First Day City:  The stamps were dedicated in Honolulu, Hawaii.  Aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, the ceremony took place in view of the USS Arizona Memorial.

About the World War II Series:  As the 50^th anniversary of World War II was approaching; the US Postal Service wanted a series that would recognize the key events of the war and the important contributions America made to the Allied victory.  Rather than issue a large number of stamps, the USPS decided to create five sheetlets, each commemorating one year of America’s involvement in the war.  Each sheetlet had 10 different stamps arranged in two horizontal strips of 5.  In the center was a world map with Allied and neutral nations in yellow and Axis-controlled areas in red.  Notes on the map highlighted key developments that occurred that year.  The stamps each featured important events that took place during the year, as well.

History the stamp represents:  The stamps picture the following events:
Marines raise flag on Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945
By early 1945 Japan had lost most of her empire and faced certain defeat, but she continued to fight.  To make their Pacific campaign successful the Allies needed more bases.  A tiny island 750 miles south of Japan called Iwo Jima became their primary target.

Seven months before the actual invasion, aircrafts began bombing the island.  Then on February 19, 1945, the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th US Marine divisions landed.  The Japanese had prepared elaborate mine fields and underground tunnels, and a remarkable communications system for the island’s defense. The fight for Iwo Jima proved to be one of the bloodiest battles of the war.

On February 23^rd, after three days of intense combat, the Marines captured Mt. Surbachi and hoisted the Stars and Stripes.  A Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of this moment has become one of the most famous images of the war, and served as the model for the US Marine Corps Memorial in Arlington, Virgina.  After 26 days of fierce fighting, the Japanese surrendered on March 16^th – nearly 21,000 Americans had been lost.

A strategic base for the US in the last stages of the war, Iwo Jima served as a base for the P-51 Mustangs that escorted the formidable B-29s on their bombing raids, as well as an emergency landing airstrip.

Fierce fighting frees Manila by March 3, 1945
Manila is the capital, largest city, and leading port of the Philippines. The Japanese seized this city, located on the island of Luzon, on January 2^nd, just four weeks after World War II began in the Pacific.  On January 9, 1945, the Allies landed on the island with the largest landing force used in the Pacific campaign, and began fighting their way to Manila.  The Japanese were ready with an impressive army of 250,000 men.

But despite their size, the Japanese had been weakened by Filipino guerrilla attacks and steady bombings by US aircraft.  US forces defeated the Japanese in the north and east, then prepared for their final drive on Manila, which coincided with the 8^th Army’s drive across the base of the Bataan Peninsula.  Liberation of the city began on February 3, 1945.

It took 29 days to clear the city, and in the desperate house-to-house struggle much of Manila was destroyed.  On March 4^th, the city was liberated.  US troops freed more than 5,000 Allied prisoners.  Although small bands of Japanese remained and continued to fight, MacArthur was able to establish a base rebuilding Manila almost immediately.  Today Manila is again the country’s chief cultural, social, and commercial city.

Okinawa, the last big battle, April-June 1945
Only 325 miles south of mainland Japan, the island of Okinawa was a prime strategic objective.  The landing on Okinawa began on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, and was the last and largest amphibious assault of the Pacific Campaign.  Expecting immediate resistance, as at Iwo Jima, troops were surprised to find little enemy activity.  Hours after troops had swarmed ashore, a vital airstrip was captured with a single shot being fired. For five days US troops waited to engage the enemy.

Then on April 6^th the Japanese struck – General Ushijima had pulled his forces back to the southern part of the island and was waiting to trap the Marines!   For two days, nearly 700 enemy aircraft, including 350 kamikazes, pounded the beachheads and the offshore forces.  From that point on, Okinawa was won in a series of bloody battles.  After 82 days of fighting the island was captured.  More than 110,000 Japanese were dead – nine for every American.

America’s sea power, encroaching land force, and formidable air power now posed an immediate threat to the Japanese mainland.  Some members of the Japanese government favored surrender; others wanted to fight on.  With their bases in line, the Allies proceeded with their plans to force Japan into unconditional surrender.

US and Soviets link up at Elbe River, April 1945
When the Battle of the Bulge ended in January 1945, Hitler’s forces were no longer a serious threat on the Western front.  With reserves exhausted, armor scare, motor fuel drying up, and the Luftwaffe virtually gone, the defeat of Germany was inevitable.  Despite the obvious however, Hitler gave orders to fight on.

In an effort to effectively eliminate the enemy, the Allies began their final campaign on the Western front.  Russian forces already in Poland and East Prussia began a massive offensive from the east on January 12^th.  Meanwhile, the US began its own offensive in the west.  Strategic bombing continued, raining destruction upon German cities day and night.  In April, the great industrial Ruhr, with its engine force of 400,000 soldiers was captured by US troops.  Meeting no real opposition in the east, Soviet forces continued to push forward, fighting their last great battle in Berlin.

On April 12^th – the day President Roosevelt died – the US Army crossed the Elbe River, the agreed upon dividing line between Soviet and Western zones of postwar occupation.  On April 25^th, amid much celebrating, Soviet and US troops met for the first time, cutting Germany in half.  Hitler ordered his soldiers to fight on, and then committed suicide on April 30^th.

Allies liberate Holocaust survivors, early 1945
The Holocaust was the mass murder of European Jews and other ethnic groups, such as Gypsies, Poles, and Slavs, by the Nazis during World War II.  Adolf Hitler considered the Jews and these other groups to be genetically inferior to his “Aryan” master race.  Removing the Jews was one of the steps in Hitler’s plan for world domination.

To facilitate this mass murder the Nazis built concentration camps.  At first these highly organized camps were used to terrorize and intimidate, but in 1941 when Hitler decided to murder all of the Jews, the camps became efficient killing factories.  About 2.5 million people were murdered at the concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland alone.  As many as 2,000 people were killed at a single time in the gas chambers there.  Bodies were disposed of in crematoriums.

The battle-hardened Allied soldiers who liberated the camps were shocked at what they found.  By the end of the war approximately 6 million Jews, about two-thirds of all the Jews in Europe, had been killed by the Nazis.  Total number of civilians killed by the Nazis is estimated to be as least 11 million.

Germany surrenders at Reims, May 7, 1945
Hidden from harm in his bunker under Berlin, Hitler continued ordering his troops to fight, somehow believing the Third Reich could defeat its enemies.  But, when Soviet forces smashed their way into Berlin on April 25^th, and with US forces waiting at the Elbe River, reality overcame Hitler’s vision.

On April 30^th Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, decided to commit suicide to “escape the shame of overthrown or capitulation.”  Two days later portions of the German forces began asking for a cease-fire.  The little resistance left in Germany was crumbling fast.

Germany’s actual surrender came at 2:41 AM on May 7^th.  General Eisenhower refused to attend the signing in person.  With the words, “…the German people and armed forces are, for better or worse, delivered into the victor’s hands,” German Field Mashal Alfred Gustav Jodl signed the surrender.  The representatives were then ushered into Eisenhower’s office, where he confirmed that they understood the unconditional surrender.  The ceremony was repeated for the Soviets the next day – history has recorded May 8^th as V.E. Day or Victory in Europe Day ever since. 

By 1945, World War II has uprooted millions
During World War II destructive force was used against civilians in an unprecedented manner.  Civilians were specifically targeted, and subjected to starvation, bombing raids, massacres, epidemics, and other war related hazards.  The results were catastrophic.

The war uprooted millions of people – more than 12 million were displaced in Europe alone.  These included orphans, prisoners of war, Holocaust survivors, and people who had fled from armies and war-torn areas.  Many people left their homes due to the reorganization of natural boundaries during the war.  Large numbers of Germans had moved into Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Eastern European countries under Nazi control, but they were later expelled.  After the war many refugees from Eastern European nations were unwilling to return to their homelands due to the totalitarian communist governments that had taken power.

To remedy this immense problem the Allies created the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration or UNRRA.  It first began operating in 1944 in areas freed from Nazi occupation.  UNRRA efforts involved setting up camps which supplied food, clothing, and medical care.  In 1947 there were still one million refugees in the camps waiting for homes.

Truman announces the end of the war, August 1945
By the summer of 1945 the Allies were preparing to invade the Japanese mainland.  Military experts estimated one million US casualties would be incurred in this invasion, which was planned for November 1945.  Japanese losses would have been much higher.

In 1939 Albert Einstein told President Franklin Roosevelt about the possibility of building an atomic bomb, and in 1942 the Manhattan Project, a top-secret program to develop such a bomb, was launched.  Shortly after the defeat of Germany, in July of 1945, the first bomb was tested in New Mexico.  President Truman learned of the success while attending Potsdam conference with Churchill and Stalin.  The US, Great Britain, and China issued an ultimatum to Japan – surrender unconditionally or be destroyed.  Unfortunately, the Japanese chose to fight on.

On August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber called the “Enola Gay” dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, killing an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people.  The Japanese still did not respond, so a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9^th; 40,000 perished.  On August 14th the Japanese surrendered.  Historians from both countries agree the atomic bombs actually saved American and Japanese lives.

Japan’s surrender hits home, August 14, 1945
The people of Japan heard the voice of their emperor for the first time ever when he announced, in a radio broadcast, that the war was over.  The Japanese were devastated – most responded by openly weeping.  America’s response to the news was one of pure joy.

V-E Day celebrations had been stifled by the sobering realization that the war in the Pacific was still to be fought.  But with the Japanese surrender, the war was truly over.  Whistles blew, church bells rang, crowds filled the streets, employees left work early, and strangers embraced as the nation erupted in celebration.

Japan surrendered on August 14^th, but the official ceremony was held September 2^nd aboard the US battleship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay.  Two Japanese officials, as well as representatives from US, Great Britian, China, Russia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada, France, and Australia signed the surrender document.  September 2^nd has been celebrated as V-J Day or Victory over Japan Day ever since.

Excitement subsided as serious speculation about the future began.  People everywhere wanted to be sure the world would never suffer through such a calamity again.  This hope was expressed October 24, 1945, when the United Nations was signed into existence.

Hometowns honor their returning veterans, 1945
With the war over the folks back home eagerly awaited their servicemen’s return.  Some had quite a wait, as soldiers were given various occupational duties, but each returning veteran was treated to a hero’s welcome.  Parades and celebrations featuring these heroes were held everywhere. 

American had changed while the veterans had been away.  Although the country looked much the same, with the addition of some new factories, social and political changes had permanently reshaped the nation.  Millions of women had taken jobs outside of their homes and experienced the benefits and high pay of industrial jobs.  African-Americans were given new opportunities – the Fair Employment Practices Committee created by President Roosevelt in 1941 prevented job discrimination in defense industries.  And due to higher wartime wages, a larger property-owning middle class had been created.

Surveys showed that returning servicemen had been worried about their future employment and the return of the Great Depression, but years following World War II were quite prosperous.  For most Americans simply being at peace was the best reward.