On this day, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiegne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure.
The story of how America’s battle to control the seas against the terrifying German U-boats in the Atlantic and Japan’s fearsome Navy in the Pacific ultimately turns the tide of the war. See more in this clip from Season 1, Episode 5, "The War at Sea."