81 years ago today, the mission of the greatest army the world had ever seen reached the culmination of its mission to save the world from Nazi tyranny: the once-mighty German army laid down its arms and marched docilely off to Allied POW enclosures.

SHAEF commander Dwight D. Eisenhower issued this order of the day.

“Men and women of the Allied Expeditionary Force:

“The crusade on which we embarked in the early summer of 1944 has reached its glorious conclusion . . .

“Your accomplishments at sea, in the air, on the ground and in the field of supply, have astonished the world. Even before the final week of the conflict, you had put 5,000,000 of the enemy permanently out of the war. You have taken in stride military tasks so difficult as to be classed by many doubters as impossible. You have confused, defeated and destroyed your savagely fighting foe. On the road to victory you have endured every discomfort and privation and have surmounted every obstacle ingenuity and desperation could throw in your path. You did not pause until our front was firmly joined up with the great Red Army coming from the Easy, and other Allied Forces, coming from the South.