In this Sept. 2, 1945 file photo, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, left, watches as the foreign minister of Japan, Mamoru Shigemitsu,
signs the surrender document aboard the USS Missouri on Tokyo
Bay. Lt. General Richard K. Sutherland, center, witnesses the
ceremony marking the end of World War II, with other American
and British officers in the background. (Source: AP Photo)

Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally surrendered to the
Allies (above) bringing an end to World War II.

By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone conclusion. The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed. The Allied naval blockade of
Japan and intensive bombing of Japanese cities had left the country and
its economy devastated. At the end of June, the Americans captured
Okinawa, a Japanese island from which the Allies could launch an invasion
of the main Japanese home islands. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur was
put in charge of the invasion, which was code-named “Operation Olympic”
and set for November 1945.

SANDY KOZEL

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

An oil painting by American artist John Trumbull depicts the fatal wounding by bayonet of Brig. Gen. Hugh Mercer, center, at the
Battle of Princeton.

A younger Mercer Oak now stands where the original marked the
scene of the fatal wounding of Brig. Gen. Hugh Mercer.

Hopelessly trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, British General Lord Cornwallis surrenders 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a larger Franco-American
force, effectively bringing an end to the American Revolution on this day
in 1781.

Lord Cornwallis was one of the most capable British generals of the
American Revolution.

Storming of Redoubt #9.

The storming of Redoubt No. 10.

The victory at Yorktown was honored in a 1783 medallion minted in
Paris and designed there by US Ambassador Benjamin Franklin.

TIM MAGUIRE