Today is Veterans Day. Originally it was called Armistice Day. At 11.00 on 11/11 in 1917, fighting ceased between the Allies and Germany. World War I was effectively over.
Since World War I, in the United States, we have gone on to have World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the First Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, the Second Gulf War and many smaller conflicts in between. The holiday now represents all veterans, but, it started to commemorate that first horrible war in the West’s history: the Great War of 1914–1918.
This graphic, from a post at a bookstore owned by John Ptak, originally comes from a larger illustration (beneath) in the Illustrated London News of Royal Navy losses at the conclusion of World War II. For comparison’s sake the original illustrator, G.H. Davis, included this drawing of the Royal Navy’s losses in the Great War of 1914–1918. That war, in naval terms, is perhaps best known for one of the few true battles between battleships on a large scale: the Battle of Jutland.
