World War II veteran Andre Chappaz describes the day he learned the war was over.
Video by Air Force Tech. Sgt. Neal Uranga
Transcript
[Orchestral music]
(President Franklin D. Roosevelt) The American people and their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
(Andre Chappaz) And they were starting to go up in a “V” and some guy caught it. He jumped up, he says, “the war is over!” And all the guys say “the war is over!” And they all ran for their tents. They got their M1 rifle. They came out and started squeezing clips and pop, pop, pow into the sky! That’s, I mean the guys were, yeah, they were letting their enthusiasm go you know, yeah. It was great, it was great, and next morning the officers collected all the rifles. (laughs) I hated it. I love my rifle. I did not want to give it back.