US Presidency
1945

Mayor La Guardia, ladies and gentlemen: I am grateful for the magnificent reception which you have given me today in this great city of New York. I know that it is given me only as the representative of the gallant men and women of our naval forces, and on their behalf, as well as my own, I thank you. New York joins the rest of the Nation in paying honor and tribute to the four million fighting Americans of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, and to the ships which carried them to victory. On opposite sides of the world, across two oceans, our Navy opened a highway for the armies and air forces of the United States. They landed our gallant men, millions of them, on the beachheads of final triumph. Fighting from Murmansk, the English Channel and the Tyrrhenian Sea, to Midway, Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf and Okinawa, they won the greatest naval victories in history.