For the first couple of days everyone was drunk with excitement until the Navy came out with a point system for discharge. It doesn’t seem possible that the last country opposing us has finally given in. “Since I wrote last the Japs have surrender or are about to. You bet your last dollar however that until they actually give up the war is not won.” Following a pause that may indicate his immediate state of mind upon learning the war was over, Cooper resumed his correspondence home on 22 August. using their new bomb.” Three days later, which also happened to be his twenty-first birthday, he wrote, “The war can’t last much longer at the rate the Japs are taking it now. “Bill” Cooper noted in a letter dated 10 August, “The news looks pretty bright now with Russia in and the U.S. Writing to his parents in Ohio, Aviation Machinist's Mate Charles W. For many, an announcement had seemed imminent, although not certain, ever since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings on 6 and 9 August. News of the victory over Japan generated a variety of thoughts and emotions for Sailors in the Pacific. Whereas the war had produced enormous, existential challenges that generally could be faced with moral clarity, now peace seemed to introduce a variety of complex and often morally ambiguous problems overseas. Meanwhile, the United States, Soviet Union, and weakened colonial powers of France, the United Kingdom, and The Netherlands hoped to advance their own political and economic interests. Local leaders of all stripes and abilities maneuvered to attain political power by making nationalist, communist, anti-communist, or other appeals to the masses. Manila, many coastal Chinese cities, and other locales exposed to fighting had suffered extensive damage. Millions of battered or displaced people now lived or roamed atop the battered and cracked foundations of the European colonial and former Japanese imperial territories. Overseas, a new strategic situation quickly was taking shape. Now, orders for ships, planes, and tanks, which already had been scaling back since 1944, would dwindle to a relative trickle. A generation prior, following the end of World War I, a brief but sharp economic downturn accompanied by strikes and race riots unsettled many cities in the immediate postwar years. Īlongside the celebratory mood, however, came a sobering awareness for some of the question, “What next?” In World War II the common American sentiment was, “We are all in this together.” But now the unifying effect of fighting treacherous enemies had been removed and soon, too, would the great economic engine of wartime production. Hugs, shouts, and more continued the following day as the United States, United Kingdom, and other Allies celebrated victory over Japan and the end of World War II. In New York’s Times Square and other crowded cities, Sailors kissed strangers. Across the country in Seattle, mass hysteria erupted. Instead, car horns blared long into the night in the nation’s capital. Leahy considered the moment appropriate for solemnly reflecting upon all that the country and world had just endured for so many years. Sitting just feet away as the president spoke, Fleet Admiral William D. Truman broadcast a formal announcement of the long-awaited event over the radio and declared 15 and 16 August to be days of celebration. Therefore, waves of relief and joy followed in the wake upon hearing on 14 August 1945 that the Japanese government finally had signed its acceptance of unconditional surrender.Īt 7 p.m. In combination, Operations Olympic and Coronet, the invasions scheduled respectively for Kyushu that fall and Honshu in early 1946, were projected to produce perhaps a quarter-million or more casualties and dwarf the numbers of men lost in early campaigns. American military planners in the summer of 1945 envisioned a truly formidable task as they prepared for the assault into the Japanese home islands that fall.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |