"Truman was giving his speech about the war being over and suddenly the German planes came over, and we shot one of them down." (Video Interview, Part 2, 2:21)

Edward Wallace Hopkins

Sgt. Edward W. Hopkins, Camp Croft, S.C. [1944] War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Army Unit: Battery A, 411th Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) Gun Battalion, 3rd Army; Training Cadre, Camp Croft Service Location: European Theater Rank: Sergeant

The day World War II came to an official end, Edward Hopkins and his antiaircraft crew were taking no chances, picking off a German plane whose intentions weren't clear. Hopkins was in Austria at the time, attached to Patton's Third Army, which had been famously diverted from driving straight on into Berlin for the end of the war. His postwar experiences included supervising German civilians as they cleaned up the Dachau death camp and visiting the grave of his brother in France, who had been killed in action there.