to the rest of the country, from the only state which still celebrates it.
We’ve change the name to disguise the purpose of the day.
Because disclosing the Victory we are commemorating would be so incorrect. It’s like everyone gets a trophy day.
Anyway, for those of you who missed it on July 4, here’s the original Victory (shhhh …. Over Japan) Day celebration in Honolulu:
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Comments
Perhaps with WW2 and the attack on Pearl Harbor, I imagine the two days “of infamy” left in contemporary life will be 9/11 and November 4th, 2008.
I think the latter date will become far more infamous.
Thank you, men and women in and out of uniform that gave us the Pax Americana that provided the world with the greatest expansion of wealth and freedom in all of history.
Wow….you have to be pretty darn happy to stand up straight on the hood of a moving car. I hope no one got hurt.
Happy Victory Over Japan Day!
I was in Japan on the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and remember the sirens going off in my wife’s hometown at the time of day the bombs were dropped.
It had to be done. Some military leaders were talking about sacrificing 20 million citizens to defend against an invasion.
And people need to remember that for every month the war went on, the continued occupation of much of Asia by the Japanese meant the death of an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 civilians each month.
“I’ll Be Seeing You”. Even Jimmy Durante could make that great, or couldn’t make it bad. Hell of a song, and reminds us of what went before and what half a million bereaved American families would face for decades.
Some ships, out at sea, where the guns were loaded, guys fired off the twenties or machine guns. Crap had to come down someplace. How would you like, my father has said, to hear your son was killed by celebratory fire on VJ Day?
My Dad was stationed in the Solomon Islands during WW II. I wonder if I would be here today, but for the atomic bombs which ended the war.
This is a Memorial website for WW II veterans. It is linked to the WWII Memorial in D.C. if you know a WW II veteran, submit their data at this web site or search for them on the registry.
http://wwiimemorial.com/
I submitted a photo of my Dad and his brother, who was in the Battle of the Bulge. My uncle stayed in the military and served in the Korean War and the Viet Nam war, before retiring. His son was an Air Force pilot during the Viet Nam War at the same time as his father.
I will be celebrating VJ day tomorrow with breakfast at Denny’s. An “ultimate” omelette will be on tap along with endless coffee.
I do this every year even though I am in far away Texas these days…
With deepest gratitude to all who fought or died in that effort, I bow my head and say “May God bless you all.”
Japan’s Secret War by Robert Wilcox (1985 William Morrow) “outlines Japan’s race against time to build its own atomic bomb. The introduction, by Derek deSolla Price, includes the the results of US CID Korea interview of a Japanese officer who was the chief of security at the atomic bomb project being conducted at Konan Korea (Now in North Korea).
The officer described a nuclear explosion on August 12, 1945, off the coast of North Korea.
As an aside, Konan is the same area where the North Koreans carry out its nuclear work.
It was always celebrated around our house. My father was getting ready for the Operation Olympic – the Kyushs invasion – portion of Operation Downfall, the Invasion of Japan, when they heard about the atom bomb. They assumed it was just another rumor, all of which were as fanciful or improbable. The day before, they’d heard that the Emperor had been overthrown and a peace government had taken over, but Tokyo Rose squashed that.
They were at Buckner Bay, Okinawa, putting things right after the hell of that invasion, getting ready for the last big push against the homeland. After Pelelieu and Okinawa, few of them had any illusions that they were going to get home in one piece.
Also, VJ Day is still widely celebrated in Guam and the Philippines.
My father-in-law was a seven-year-old primary school student in 1945 being trained to attack your father with a sharpened bamboo stick.
The emperor’s radio address to the nation informing them of their surrender was at 12:00 noon.
However, three hours later at 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon, guards at one of the POW camps in my wife’s hometown took the couple dozen American flyboy prisoners who remained to Aburayama (a large hill in the city about a mile from my wife’s house … now popular as a lover’s lane and picnic area) and beheaded all of them … three hours after they’d listened to the emperor declaring Japan’s surrender.
While others were celebrating the end of the war, these men were being butchered as some of our last casualties.
My Dad(who passed on 12-10-2004) was in the Japan conflict as army solider in the fight for the small land island of Okinawa. He never talked to me much about his expierence in that battle for that island. The 96th Army Division was his unit at that time. I have one of his hats(The Deadeyes) and his personal rifle in cilivian life(270 Winchester) which I know now was a snifer rifle that was used by people trained in that part of the war. He was raised on a farm in his life. Go Figure! My mom finally told me after his death that my father was a sniper in WWII in the Japan War. I learn alot from my father through his comments in life that War Is Hell! and that no one should have to experience it if it could be avoided.
But, history has a funny thing about repeating itself over and over. Look at the three or four thousand years of mankind. Lots and lots of wars and fighting over land and/or beliefs about God or religion or whatever. What a waste of manpower and money over nothing.
Will we every learn?
Have A Nice Day!
P.S. Love reading this blog!
God bless every man and woman that fought in that war, and thank you all for what you did for us. That said, I don’t have any problem with RI still observing VJ Day – but even living next door in the Massachusetts SSR I was kinda startled the first time I heard about it. At some point, Armistice Day morphed into Veterans’ Day — maybe it’s time to let this one rest, too?