World War II Memorials in the National Park Service

With its elevated view of the District of Columbia, the Arlington Ridge Park site has been regarded as a prime location for several memorials. The landscape is situated on a ridge above the Potomac River in Arlington, VA. It contains two major memorials and their associated designed landscapes: the 1954 U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, and the 1960 Netherlands Carillon.

Completed in 1994 in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Guam, the Asan Bay Overlook serves as a memorial to those that lost their lives or suffered atrocities during the World War II. The overlook features beautiful views of the seaside villages of Asan and Piti and an aerial perspective of the landing beaches used by Marines during the battle.

“Kilroy was here”, accompanied by a cartoon drawing of a man looking over a wall, was a popular piece of graffiti drawn by American troops in the Atlantic Theater and then later in the Pacific Theater. It came to be a universal sign that American soldiers had come through an area and left their mark. There are two Kilroy inscriptions hidden in the memorial tucked in the corners of both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the memorial. Can you find them?

The Memorial Wall of Names includes the names of the 1,880 U.S. servicemen who died on Guam during World War II as well as the 1,170 people of Guam who died during the war and the 14,721 who suffered atrocities during the occupation and battles.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, was one of the 20th century’s most influential figures. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, the newest in the nation’s capital, pays tribute to this remarkable historic figure with heroic-sized bronze sculptures, stone bas reliefs, and quotations from his most famous speeches and addresses.

The Sons of Guam Pearl Harbor Memorial honors the twelve CHamoru men killed aboard the USS Arizona, USS West Virginia, USS Nevada, and the USS Oklahoma when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

The hostilities of World War II did not end all at once. In the United States, they also took place against the somber backdrop of President Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945. A few short days later, on May 8, President Truman announced the unconditional surrender of Germany. Celebrations of V-E (Victory in Europe) Day spilled into the streets across the country and around the world. But the celebrations were tinged with the awareness that the war in the Pacific continued.

An extremely important, but sometimes overlooked, aspect of World War II was America’s overwhelming home front effort. The contributions of millions of stateside Americans to the war effort is commemorated in the World War II Memorial.

Thousands of veterans who served in World War II witnessed the formal dedication of the memorial. Designed by the former chief of the Rhode Island School of Design, Friedrich St. Florian, the memorial illustrates the clear relationship between the home front and the battle front, as Americans at home and those fighting abroad relied upon each other’s support in this defining moment of the 20th Century.