Chuck Hagel to Keynote 75th Anniversary of D-Day Screening of The True Glory
Press Release · Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Washington, DC

We welcome former Secretary of Defense and Vietnam veteran Chuck Hagel on Thursday, June 6, at 7 p.m., for a screening and discussion of the epic film The True Glory.   This special program and a related Featured Document Display honor the 75th Anniversary of D-Day.  The screening is free and open to the public, and will be held in the William G. McGowan Theater of the National Archives Museum.  The National Archives D-Day program and featured exhibit is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the generous support of The Boeing Company.

Attendees should use the Special Events entrance on Constitution Avenue at 7th Street, NW.  Reservations are recommended and can be made online. The building is Metro accessible on the Yellow and Green lines, Archives/Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter station.

The True Glory, a joint production of the U.S. Office of War Information and the British Ministry of Information, is the epic filmed record of the June 6, 1944, invasion of Normandy and the Allied push across Europe. (85 minutes.) The National Archives Motion Picture Preservation Lab digitally restored the film in 2014.

Chuck Hagel was the 24th Secretary of Defense, serving from February 2013 to February 2015. He is the only Vietnam veteran and the first enlisted combat veteran to serve as Secretary of Defense. He served two terms in the United States Senate (1997-2009) representing the state of Nebraska. Hagel was a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; and Intelligence Committees, and chaired two subcommittees: Foreign Relations International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion; and Banking Committee’s International Trade and Finance, and Securities. He is the author of America: Our Next Chapter.

Related Featured Document display:  75th Anniversary of D-Day
East Rotunda Gallery, May 23-July 2, 2019
On June 6, 1944, Allied forces launched the greatest amphibious invasion the world has ever seen. The historic D-day invasion of Normandy, France, was a turning point in World War II, but it was just the initial assault in a massive operation that liberated Western Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany, on May 7, 1945.  A collection of documents shows the dogged determination and endurance of the Allied forces that made D-day a triumph. The display includes General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s D-Day Statement to Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force.