At eleven o’clock on November 11, 1918—the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—the Armistice between the Allied Powers and Germany took effect, bringing the fighting on the Western Front to a halt. This U.S. Signal Corps photograph captures soldiers of the 64th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, celebrating the news in the Puvenelle sector of France near the Moselle River. The men raise their arms and cheer, their jubilation breaking through the battered surroundings of the front.
For the men of the 64th, the news meant more than the cessation of gunfire. The division had been serving on the Lorraine front, where the prospect of further operations still hung over its soldiers. The Armistice replaced that uncertainty with the possibility of a life beyond the trenches. There would be no need to face another attack, another patrol, or another morning wondering whether they would survive the day. For men accustomed to measuring the future in hours, the thought of home could finally become something more than a hope.
The photograph preserves the exhilaration of that moment: arms thrown high, faces bright with disbelief and joy, men cheering the news they had waited to hear. The fighting was over.
