at normandy, a special gallery for us here. because our museum was originally founded in the 1990's d as the national-day -- as the national d-day musuem. we were charged with telling the story of the entire american experience in world war ii. gallery, we get to the big moment where the united states and her allies had to win this particular day. d-day, june 6, 1944. behind me is a film narrated by tom brokaw, which gives our visitors the overarching story of d-day at normandy. next to me over here on the left, it's a very special exhibit. this is an exhibit case dedicated to ernie pyle's long, thin line of anguish column.

ernie pyle actually walked to the beaches at normandy where andamerican forces landed, he saw all the pieces of war left over. what we have in this case is actual artifacts and sand from utah and omaha beaches. pyle writes about what he found. you can see he talked about shoe les,sh, sewing kits, bib hand grenades, toothbrushes, razors. he particularly singles out in his column writing paper. young menbout how the who gave their lives at normandy intended to write an awful lot of letters back home. the other thing they had an awful lot of was cigarettes. he said that packs of cigarettes

had been handed out to the troops before the landings began , and he made the comment that the line of cigarettes up and down the beach, the high water of this sacrifice at normandy. it's a moment for our audiences after the film to pause and reflect about what was going on in the world, d-day, june 6, the day that hitler could have german our forces back into the waters of the english , and frome failed that point forward we were on our way to the road to berlin and ending the third reich. on this while we have the civilian, military, and political leadership's reaction to the normandy landings, starting with anne frank, a young jewish girl hiding in an

attic and holland, -- in ho lland, where she writes in her diary, could it be true that forces have been landed and we would be liberated? dwight eisenhower weighs in, supreme commander saying that we have landed and the hour of liberation is approaching. winston churchill, the prime minister of great britain, adds the sobering note that although we've had a successful landing there at normandy, in fact we have a very long way to go. we are better than 700 miles away from berlin itself. as you can see by this map here, we have managed to achieve a toehold on the content and penicillin france. and alongcherbourg the beaches, but we are also bottled up and facing a very hard, serious fight to try to move through northern france

before we can start to really get some traction on defeating nazi germany. we are now in the race across france galleries in which we tell the story of the allies' france.across northern behind me, you can see how these wooded hedge rows across fields of france held up our military advancement, these hedgerows for so thick, there thousands of years, that you can have a german soldier on one side of a hedge row three feet away from an allied soldier and the two would not even know they were there. tanks, in fact, could not go through these hedgerows until we build some clippers onto the front of these tanks, american ingenuity, that allowed us to towardssting through

the liberation of france. the liberation of paris in particular is the second chapter in the race across france, and then at the end of the gallery we tell the story of operation market garden, are daring attempt to try to end the war before christmas of 1944 through parachute drop that comes up one bridge too short in holland. to my right over here as we move we have someap, artifacts, very interesting. frenchwoman in normandy was a member of the french resistance, and she was spying on the germans. so here we have a german typewriter that she used to write notes, to send information , a germanies typewriter, as well as a crystal radio receiver next to it which -- listeno send out legal bbc, the elgal --

radio broadcast under the nazi regime. you may notice this pink and red silk liberation sash. this was given to an american 1944.nant in september of on the back of it is written, viva la grande revolution. it symbolizes the out. joy that the french people had as the allies begin to move through their country and liberate them from nazi rule. down here on the end is a special artifact that we have. it is the medal of honor that was awarded to walter. walter was a friend of this museum, he passed away about a year ago. he was the last at the time medal of honor recipient from

the normandy landings. he received his medal of honor for actions that took race about three days after the initial landings. besides the medal of honor is a photograph of his mother that he carried in his backpack. walt came from a very religious family in kansas. he promised his mother that he would not drink or swear or curse or smoke while he was over here. he's going to be moving through france a day after he had been involved in a terrible incident, when one of his comrades was shot, and to protect him, walt is going to go and try to rescue him. him, and thehot at bullets went through the portrait of his mother that he was carrying in his backpack. despite this, he was able to fight off the germans and

basically carry his comrade to safety. walt washose actions, given the medal of honor. however, need to mention that who alsoa brother landed at normandy with walt on june 6, 1944. while he waso walt performing these heroic actions, his brother never made it to the beach at normandy. his brother was killed when his higgins boat coming into the beaches was hit by shell fire. walt did not know that at the time. he found this out some days later. this was a terrible experience for him, very bittersweet. over here in this case, we have items that are dedicated to the average g.i. experience in

france and european theater. some of this is material. -- material the public would expect to see, such as gun cleaning kits. when you're out in the field moving with an army as an infantryman, there's all kinds of other things you need, such as sewing kits, things such as ,rayer books, razors, old spice matches, cigarettes. what do you do for entertainment? as simple ass tickets for free hot coffee, the officers club. you can see as well in this case something is little interesting, item number 26 is a can opener. something specifically designed for the field. that troopspment

would use as they move through advancing against the nazis. after race across france, operation cobra, the united states and her allied forces are going to liberate paris in august of 1944. this was a high point for a lot of people who thought the end of the war might be drawing near. maybe we would be able to get all the way to berlin by christmas time. however, in this case over here we have a little artifact that reminds us that things get lost along the way. john mack, an african-american man, was from centerville, louisiana. he was a member of the red ball express. think about him racing across

france. you need to be able to keep up with them and -- with food and troopse, keeping the moving. he lost his dog tags on the beaches of normandy when he came ashore as part of the red ball express. over 70 years later, his dog tags were rediscovered by a farmer in france who then sent them to the secretary of state's .ffice here in louisiana he presented us with the dog tags. in a sense, john mack and his dog tags came home 70 years later. here in the case as well you can see the red ball express's badge that they were on their uniforms. -- wore on their uniforms. they are moving into a bunker, a bunker that is supposed to be a german bunker. ofically, after the failure market garden in september of 1944 where we famously came up

one bridge too far, too short for me able to invade into northern germany, people still hoped that the war might be over, if not by christmas, maybe a little later. unfortunately, this was a terrible misjudgment. as we got closer to the german border, resistance stiffened. we learned about a very nasty affair that should have let us know that things were not going swimmingly. on top of the bunker concrete here, you can see a fabrication of church steeples and buildings. the germans used to use chalk

and markers to write out the distances of these various landmarks in the landscapes around them. this is how they would zero in and use their artillery and weapons to fire on advancing forces. used by the a map third armored division and this particular map was property of lieutenant cooper who later went on to write a memoir about what it was like to fight and tanks. idea of the terrain and the fast-moving advancement that the allied forces were making with tanks and through the war up until this point. as i mentioned, we were slowing

on the german border at this point and things were about to get a lot worse. of 1944, adolf an effort toaunch try to win the war from nokia germany. his strategy was to launch defenses against american and british forces on the western front. this depicts that attack. hitler thought what he could do would be to divide british forces to the north from the american forces to the south. thisan see the goal of offensive by the dotted redline and all the way to the north. if he could break all the way up the english channel, he thought the americans and british would be forced to come to the political solution.

600,000battle, americans were engaged. story the addicted here most famously. george patton will come up from the south after they had been surrendered. this is an incident many americans will recognize from the film where the commanding officer was asked by the germans to surrender and famously said to them "nuts." you get a sense of how logistics are so important in or.

-- war. we have a german gas tank. germans were running out of gasoline. we are going to not only have to deal with moving mechanical vehicles but also more men,tantly then, troops -- troops. were worn by major carl corbyn. in the end, we will prevail. our lines bulge but they do not break. it comes at a tremendous cost in blood. americans are killed in this fighting that goes on for six weeks.

outlast item i would point in this case here is a nazi flag captured by members of the 101st airborne division. airborne members signed their names. you can see a particular sam joule from missouri where they manage to hold out. we are going to push the .ermans back towards germany we are now headed into the heart of the battle of the bowl of bulge. battle of the we have an environment hostile to our forces. 30 degrees below is the weather.

snow all over. one of the things that made fighting in the forest rather that the germans which should artillery into the trees. the tree branches would shatter and then come down and if you were unfortunate enough, you would probably be killed by the pieces of wood. battle, we tell the stages of the battle. >> a surprise german attack has broken through. the casualties have mounted into

the thousands. >> to show americans being captured. this out.o point here is the prisoner of war id tag of benjamin cohen. he will be captured early on in the battle. , it wasg i will mention better to be a prisoner of war of the nazis than the japanese. better than 40% of american pows of the japanese perished in those camps whereas the germans, because they were concerned the allies would give good treatment to their own pows, tended to respect the rules of the geneva conventions more. out thatto point that not everything in war is

necessarily victorious and sometimes few end up on not just the losing side but in the enemy's hands. over here, one other thing i wanted to point out. the famous prayer card that general george patton asked his toplain to come up with basically guarantee good weather during the battle. and a sickly when the chaplain made the prayer, the weather cleared up and he credited this would have an influence on the battle. it actually written the prayer sometime before the battle. this prayer card was delivered to all of the troops and became part of the legend of the battle. here in our gallery, we do have . german opel sedan

this was one of the cars that officersby the german to go back and forth to transport themselves to the front. you can see all of the camouflage they used in these types of conditions. we are now entering our last gallery. 1945, the u.s. and her allies with french and and from thes

soviet union crushing germany from the east. the war is in its endgame stages as we are all converging on berlin. have theallery, we story of how berlin falls even though american troops never actually quite make it to berlin itself. handwriting see the on the wall by april 25. hathis gallery, this was a worn by one of the soviet troops when those troops met with the americans along the elbow river in april 1945. this hat was given to a lieutenant.

berlinat point forward, was surrounded and the soviets are going to go ahead and crash hitler and the forces in berlin over the next week or so. the battle of berlin is over. what we want to remind people of even as we move into germany and are getting closer and closer to our goal of victory, the violence continues to escalate and it has real human cost. as we tell the story of curtis ritter, he was a private in the american army and here, you can see a letter he wrote to his wife in 1944. he was killed in the late 1944 on the way into germany. you can see in the case that the

hometown newspaper is going to to hisews of his death hometown. you can see condolence letters written to his family. down here in the corner, we have his coveted combat infantry badge. the data that was an honor -- given only to those who face the enemy and direct combat.

the germans refused to give up. adolf hitler committed suicide april 30, 1945 7, -- in and on may we have silverware and a teapot initials onitler's them captured by american troops in munich where hitler began his .olitical career

the summation of hitler's not the germany meant to the world in terms of the debt. it something that had never been seen before in terms of distraction. uction.rac others perished in hitler's concentration camp systems to try to give people a sense of what the allied troops were fighting for, what it meant to extinguish that from the world.

after we try and summarize the cost of the war, we have an ending quote by general dwight d eisenhower. this came from a letter in 1819 -- where he tried to put in his words the meaning of the conflict he was so central in trying to prosecute. he said no other war in history has so definitely lined up the forces of arbitrary oppression and dictatorship against those of human rights and individual liberty. to him, this is what the war was about. this was his great achievement as a military leader and it made him the president of the u.s. and leader of the free world. >> they can't believe their eyes.

unable to witness anymore. a the road to berlin is number of exhibits on display at the national world war ii museum. our c-span bus is located outside the pavilion as we continue our live coverage. you can also learn about the road to tokyo and life on the home front during one of the most historic and consequential periods of american and world history. haxton.ejoined by keith thank you for being with us.

you were talking about general eisenhower. what concerns did he have just before the d-day invasion? keith: could you repeat the question? host: what concerns did eisenhower have prior to d-day? keith: he was concerned they were going to fail. a lot of things could have gone wrong. we were at the whim of the weather. we were supposed to launch the d-day invasion on june 5 and eisenhower showed leadership in that he was calculating the chances for success. if you can imagine being in his position with hundreds of thousands of men and plans ready to be sent into motion on his word, there was pressure but he delayed it because of the weather. he thought it would not succeed for 24 hours.

this was difficult for the men who were loaded up into the ships and were on the sea getting seasick. you have to have your troops in fighting form, but eisenhower went ahead and gave the go signal. the invasion went forth on june 6, 1944. this speaks a lot about his character, eisenhower wrote out a note the night before in which he said the invasion failed and he alone was responsible for this failure, in case things went wrong. fortunately, he succeeded. host: the germans knew there would be some sort of invasion. the question was where and when and from what locations in great britain. fascinating story on how the allies could keep this in the german military. keith: yes, it was a top-secret ,