VJ Day, August 14, 1945. It was a world away.

Wow incredible. I was born in 1982 only a bout 40 years after this. I'm almost 40 now and I still remember being little and seeing Back to the Future promo posters at HBO. It was a very real time. All of Europe was fighting. People act like 'oh, but we're soooo much more civilized now and it could never ever be that way again what with the advent of technology and cultural understanding.' I hope not, but it really wasn't THAT long ago. There are people alive who still remember it.

Makes me think there's something to this video.

Sharp eyes, know-it-alls, and shut ins may notice that I submitted this before. Probably last VJ Day. Please excuse any degradation of your DataLounge experience, but “there’s a war on, haven’t you heard!?”

Lovely letter, OP.

Thanks for posting.

How old was your mother when she wrote this? And how old was your father on this day?

OP, thank you! I had almost forgotten that people had nice penmanship at one time!

R3, Mom was 21. Dad was 28. He had gotten a deferment as the only male in the family, supporting his widowed Mother and sisters, though one sister apparently later told her kids that she really supported the family. I don’t doubt it. They were really poor.

That’s where this photo comes from. [Italic] Shocking [/italic] at the time!

I like the sailor in white. Even his stride and footfall is duplicated and timed right for the flash in the recreation. I’m sure it was hard to choreograph! I don’t know why there’s a flash though!

This is from the opening credits for the 2009 movie Watchmen.

BBC clip.

Biggest celebration in US history as four years of fighting and depravation comes to an end! *

“Please remember those still in Japanese captivity and those possessions still under Japanese control, until our boys can liberate them (1945)”

* British food rationing didn’t end until 1954, 14 years after it started.

That is lovely.

Thanks for sharing this lovely slice of history! God bless!!!!

Here is the vase my Dad bought in Nagasaki. He recalled the terrified locals saying “you take”, when offered money for it. He hoped there were no ancestor ashes in it! He and his shipmates really knew nothing about Japanese culture at the time. Even still, who knows much about it?

He was also impressed by their general lack of height. He was very tall. The war probably shortened a generation there.

Here’s the author with her Victory Rolls hairstyle, the name of which I only learned on DataLounge! Dad was hot, too.

I could do Palmer Method like that. I had the "best handwriting for a boy" throughout grammar school, the only time it mattered. Now I'm barely legible: arthritis, especially in my thumbs. It started because of lifting weights, then computer use did not help.

A pendant made by my Dad in the Ship’s machine shop, from Kamikaze debris. He’s lucky it was a near miss by the plane.

It’s Over! The War is Over!

Thank you for sharing this OP (I must have missed it first time around). Your mother had beautiful penmanship. Just think, future generations won't be able to read this because cursive is no longer taught.

Your mom said she wanted to get remarried - did she and your dad have a quickie civil ceremony before he shipped out? Did they ever get remarried in the church? Did your dad keep his promise and go to church when he got back?

Your mother had nice penmanship.

Have y’all noticed, that is a lesbian kiss, in the R7 re-enactment of the famous VJ Day photo?

It really is fairly recent history. I don't think the US could pull together like that now and get shit done. We're the ones causing problems for the world.

I want to hear more from OP.

OP/r12, my bf's late father was stationed in the Pacific theater as well and was in the Philippines when the war ended. He said the wealthy Japanese stashed all of their treasures, artwork, heirlooms in the Philippines and there was a massive sell off once Japan surrendered, I guess the owners needed the cash. He brought back some beautiful artifacts, including one piece that turned out to be incredibly valuable. Have you had the vase appraised?

[quote]I'm almost 40 now and I still remember being little and seeing Back to the Future promo posters at HBO.

The fuck does that have to do with anything??

Thanks, R21!

Here’s my Dad!

We have the Navy in our blood. My 4th great Grandfather TR died on one of Jefferson's gunboats during the War of 1812, defending NY Harbour.

VJ Day was August 15, 1945.

Hirohito’s prerecorded message was delivered on the 15th at noon, local time. That would have been 11 pm on the 14th, Brooklyn time. The Feast of the Assumption, referenced, is the 15th.

It seems, by the letter, that the average person didn’t know quite when it was, when it was happening.

We, in the US, celebrate it on the 15th, now, don’t we? When do the Brits celebrate it?

As far as history is concerned, it's an event that happened on the 15th. It doesn't matter what time it is somewhere else.

Here is a really cool link from Quara with a detailed history of the events in Japan over the last week of the war.

[quote] R22: Have you had the vase appraised?

Sorry to delay. VJ Day also happens to be my birthday. Also my twin’s, and an elder sister’s, too.

I have never gotten the vase appraised. It’s an interesting idea. The letters on the bottom are the name of the factory, near Nagasaki, and it’s still in business today. I wonder if I should get it tested for radioactivity?!

My Dad joked that he wondered if there might have been someine’s Ashes in the vase, but it’s a sake decanter.

OP, your mother's handwriting looks exactly like my mother's (who was born in 1939). At a glance, I would have said my mother wrote it! Definitely of a time.

[quote] R17: Your mom said she wanted to get remarried - did she and your dad have a quickie civil ceremony before he shipped out? Did they ever get remarried in the church? Did your dad keep his promise and go to church when he got back?

Sorry, I thought I replied earlier.

She could not find a Catholic Priest to marry them in Brooklyn, because my Dad was an Episcopalian. Apparently, he would not convert. They did find a Catholic Priest in Norfolk to re-marry then right after the war, so she could receive communion.

Dad was never a church goer, except for weddings, to my knowledge. His grandmother had come from a line of Bohemian Germans who spent 5 generations over 150 years in a religious commune in upstate NY. She was a bit of a nut. She’d wake the children at 5 am to pray. So, Dad had three or 4 uncles and aunts who were missionaries, but not his own father.

At Dad’s funeral, we had a speech by a Catholic Priest, Episcopalian Priest, Black Baptist minister, and a mason ceremony. It was really quite nice. Then we had a police escort to the cemetery, and a 21 gun salute. Also attended by a Navy admiral in dress whites. The above were courtesy of his brother Rotarians, and friends of his children. Plus his veteran’s status, and my Mom’s Priest. He was not any kind of big wig. It was all quite touching.

Here’s a cross post. Forgive me.

I have a horrible story.

My mother must have been maybe 80ish when I casually mentioned how funny it was that today, kids still believed that silly story their parents tell them when their pet dies, that they had taken it upstate to a nice farm, to live out it’s life, roam free, and make friends with the other farm animals, when actually they had died, instead.

My Mother replied that this wasn’t always so, because her Mother had actually taken her dog, Prince, from Brooklyn, upstate, when she was a girl, and he hadn’t died.

Then there was this really awkward silence. I felt terrible.

Get a blog, honey.

I have a blog, R34. You just wrote in it.

I'd rather read this thread than most of the others posted today.

This was a great read Thanks for sharing