hospitality ballroom, but be back in your seats by 4:00 for our closing session. let's send these guys off with one more round of applause. [applause] announcer: you are watching american history tv live from new orleans. our coverage continues in 30 minutes with today's final , gerhard weinberg. he sits down with the national world war ii museum president for a discussion on lessons learned from the war. iiil then, more on world war , looking at the history of cities across america. ur goes on the road.

here is a recent program. ♪ >> the battleship missouri becomes the scene of an unforgettable ceremony marking the formal surrender of japan. , the u.s. of tokyo destroyer glucan and brings representatives of the allied powers to witness the final capitulation. generals board to missouri. the fleet commander and atmel palsy welcome general sutherland halsey-- general welcomes general sutherland aboard. it is sunday, september 2, 1945.

♪ >> we are on the veranda deck. we now call this deck the surrender deck, where the japanese signed the unconditional surrender ending world war ii. this is where the table sat that day. the ship looks different, a shaded canopy overhead was not installed, and the turtle was rotated to make more room for the officials on board. above us, you would have seen the missouri's crew hanging on to anything they could, trying to get a glimpse of what was about to occur on this deck. in the morning and let members

of the japanese delegation were making their way on board. there were 11 of them. macarthur,uglas general nimitz and general halsey the send it from above. the first person to sign the been the would have person signing on behalf of the japanese delegation, then the japanese military. the third person was general douglas macarthur. he signed it supreme allied commander. sign wouldperson to be admiral nimitz. britain,a, great australia, new zealand, netherlands, each in turn. there are two copies. one was to be kept by the u.s., one was to be kept by japan. we do not display the originals. in the archives in

washington, d.c. and the war museum in tokyo. we have a replica of one of macarthur's pens. he only had to sign his name six pens for a very simple reason. if youstill do today look at lawmakers when they sign important laws. you want to give them away as souvenirs. simply, these proceedings are closed. he gave the signal, and over 1000 aircraft flew in formation. from the beginning of the ceremony to the end, 23 minutes. that is all it took to end the bloodiest conflict in american history. now we are back on the uss missouri.

have now come to recognize this part of a ship for an event that happened in world war ii. it is a touching event and tells you about the ship and its crew. , thee battle of okinawa missouri saw herself under, attack. the word dates back to the 13th century when japan found itself under threat of invasion. storms became named kamikaze , or divine when. it was used to save the country from the threat of invasion. yardst was spotted 7000 off the starboard side where we

are standing currently. he came in low, the guns took up firing on the kamikaze, hitting 14:42, 1945, he slammed his plane into the side of the missouri. of hisy, the left-wing plane, the fuselage, and the bomb fell into the ocean and did not cause harm to the missouri or crew. the right wing flew on to the missouri and spilled aviation fuel and wreckage as far forward as the surrender deck and ignited a huge fire. other ships thought she was sinking but her crew was so good that they put the fire out in minutes, and no one had been killed, and there were only a few minor injuries. as they begin to clean up the wreckage of the wing and the parts that had spilled on the

deck, they found the body of the pilot. the ship's first commanding officer after finding out the body had landed on the missouri made the order to take the pilot's body below deck to prepare for a full military funeral. you can imagine members of the missouri were not happy, but respected their commanding officer and follow through. night, several sewed the japanese flag. a funeral was held for the pilot. six men stood holding the body of the pilot with a bugler and chaplain who would say a dead enemy is no longer your enemy. at 9:00 a.m., the chaplain said, commit his body to the sea. not many have heard the story. the reason why is it got no

press coverage coming no one talked about it. april 12, 1945 was the day , thatent roosevelt died harry as truman was sworn in as the next president of the united states. we are inside the captain's cabin on the missouri, a very large space in the well decorated. it is for the captain of the missouri for when the ship is important or he has visiting dignitaries. the uss missouri memorial association has a large historic collection. a large part has been donated by former crew members. it spans from the turn-of-the-century with the original battleship missouri all the way to the modern day and the current uss missouri submarine. we have pulled out some artifacts for display. these are two important pieces

of the ship's history. they are fragments of the kamikaze plane that hit the missouri. the piece on the left has paint on it. the piece on the right was painted. you have two different pieces that both ended up back here on the missouri. the next few things we have on display here today are from the kamikaze attack on the missouri. these two pieces are from something larger. recovered by the medical division. when captain callahan gave the order to take the pilot's body down below, they brought the body down and prepared it for a funeral. at some point in that process, the commanding officer of that

corpsmanas well as a came upon two fragments of the scarf that pilot was wearing. one is quite small. this one from the medical officer is quite large. pattern, bear the same a faint floral pattern, in addition to the oil and things you can see on them. they are two of our most fragile artifacts. display for the 75th anniversary of that attack, one of these fragments will go on display. they are so fragile that we keep them in a climate-controlled area. most set ofe artifacts we have on board the ship are known as surrender cards. those on given to board for the surrender ceremony

to verify and to prove to everyone they were on board. signed. is you can look closely. it is signed here by the fleet holsey andneral general nimitz. you also get that commanding officer and douglas macarthur's signature. it bears the name of each individual. we have only a handful of them. are incredibly rare and incredibly important to telling the story of the surrender aboard the missouri. the next documents we have actually show the timing. they recorded each person who came on board, to win the win eachends, and then person and ship leaves as well.

andceremony ends at 9:25, they have left by 9:29 in the morning. we have seen how detailed eight battleships plan and schedule can be. day detailf the everything that will happen on board that day. we have one from august 30 not, line5 that there's a written by the ship's second-in-command that is telling and bears the weight of what was about to happen in a few days time on board. energy, "we have the ability, and strength to prepare for and put on a glorious show for the grand finale. if each does all he can, then as i said before, when our grandchildren gather and say what did you do during the great war?

we will all answer simply, i was on the missouri. -- uss missouri in world war ii, the start was the attack on pearl harbor. for the americans and the rest of the world, the indo world war ii was that surrender ceremony september 2, 1945, aboard the missouri. with the missouri in pearl harbor, we have the book ends of world war ii. arizona,ys with the the uss missouri's guns are pointed symbolically over that thosend stand watch over sailors forever entombed in the arizona's hull. standing in the national railroad museum center. the national railroad museum has

33 acres total, and our main property is 22 acres with exhibits on the exterior, as well as the interior of three different buildings on our grounds. where we are standing is the highlight of our exhibit, our eisenhower locomotive, newly brought back from england. we have our big boy, union pacific, one of the largest and most powerful locomotives ever built. we have others that are a highlight of our museum. we are standing in front of the eisenhower locomotive, hill in an a4. it is extremely aerodynamic. it was modeled after a bugatti race car at the time.

it has 80-inch diameter wheels and three cylinders, a very different design from your two and four you would normally find. this train was built in england. there were 35 built at the time. there are only six remaining. as a high-speed passenger train. tos a train in 1938 was able breach the world speed record of 126 miles per hour. this is the fastest steam locomotive in the world. becameenhower locomotive the golden shuttle and was used for high-speed transportation prior to world war ii. >> ♪ over there, over there the word comest in

the word over there ♪ them thispainted horrible color and use them to move troops from one place to another. eisenhower, the supreme allied commander during world war ii in the european theater used this type of train as his air force one, so to speak. carsd several passenger that he used as his mobile command post. locomotive made a number of trips between england and , andand during the war then was back in passenger service after the war and tell the 1960's. honor tonamed as an dwight d. eisenhower, who was

general during world war ii. he had a tremendous impact on how the war ended in the european theater, and they wanted to honor him in some way. this is the type of engine used. it wasn't necessarily the same engine during the war. it two passenger cars behind , one of which is armored, these were used by eisenhower and his staff. a horrible, gray-looking car. it does not look like much, but was used extensively in england, especially between england and scotland. a lot of times he would need to make the run between the two of them. that one is called bayonet ii. it, you havento the experience of what it was like for him. it is dark because of the armor plating.

they had converted sleeping rooms into an office area. he used this for meetings, working with his staff. the first room is his bedroom, and then he has a second room attached to it used as a dressing room and considered as a private office where he would do his work. smallher rooms are basic, rooms. he had a private attendant who helped him out, as well as passenger cars with additional staff that would come along as well. the locomotive got here first. .t was a really long process the me, shortly after see him was designated a national museum. we had only been open three years. this woman comes in, and she had grown up in england and decided she would start talking to the gardener. she was telling him all about how the there was this train

called the dwight d. eisenhower. it turns out the gardener was our board chairman. we did not have a big staff at that time. as she was talking, she basically said we should get those trains for the national railroad museum. that gardener got it into his ,ead we were going to get that and he started a whole series of letters to the british railway board basically saying we want this train. he was promptly rebuffed. there were many years of sterling service left in the a4. he left it alone and started bargaining for another train, our big boy locomotive. in the process, he came to that individual, the president of union pacific. they knew some people and comment.

they were able to eventually get an audience with prince philip, who was the final person who gave approval to give us the locomotive. in 1963, approval was given. 1960 four, it found its way to the united states. in september, it was dedicated with the dwight d. eisenhower on premises for that. to appreciate something or understand something, people need to see things in person, be immersed by them, touch them, tasted them, smell them, feel what it is like to learn something slowly. that is a big part of what we do , to have those actual objects so you can learn. besides being able to do that, the people you are with and to that experience. when you have your whole family walking on the train, those discussions become so important

and so intrinsic to how you learn and enjoy these things. watch thisyou can and other programs on the history of communities across the country at c-span.org. this is american history tv, only on c-span3. on q&a, wesunday visit the washington library at mount vernon for the 2018 debates program featuring historians. are discussing what it means to be american. isone nation indivisible like, we are all together, so that is elemental to what it means to the american. >> what it means to be american is to be able to improvise. georgeu look at

777 and valley forge, a guerrilla fighter, to live off the land, to do what we need to do to get the job done. >> in the beginning, minority groups were not included, certain religious groups were not, and women were not considered citizens. that changes over time. more and more people are brought into the american family. announcer: sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. announcer: c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. and today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the

policy court, and public is events and washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to by your cable or satellite provider. we are back live from new orleans for the world war ii conference. next, gerhard weinberg on lessons learned. he will sit down with the national world war ii museum and nick mueller for discussion on lessons learned from the war. >> [indiscernible chatter]

every year we bring you -- every weekend we bring you 48 hours of unit programming exploring our nation's past. to view our schedule and an archive of our programs, visit www.c-span.org/history. >> ladies and gentlemen, please find your seats.

[indiscernible] we are coming to our last session for what has been a fantastic several days, so thank you for your engaged questions. thank you for your participation. welcome