In the first week of May, following Adolph Hitler’s suicide on April 30, the Nazi regime collapsed. Berlin fell to the Soviets, and Axis armies in Italy gave up. On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered, ...

Tons of American-produced supplies and war matériel, as well as hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, had only one way to get to Europe: in ships crossing the North Atlantic. German submarines, or ...