WW2 Ends 75 Years ago. Memories of VJ DAY

Here are some thoughts from those that lived it. Hard to imagine the elation, disbelief, and sadness that ensued.
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Paul Newman

On August 6, 1945, he was stationed aboard the aircraft carrier Hollandia, about 500 miles off the Japanese coast, when news came through that the first atom bomb had been dropped:

‘I know all of the controversy about those weapons,’ he later recalled. ‘But I’m one of those guys who says thank God for the atomic bomb because it probably saved my life.’
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In his autobiography (Clive James), the late broadcaster recalled his mother Minora’s nervous wait for news of her husband. Sergeant Arthur James was an infantry soldier, taken prisoner by the Japanese and held in a PoW camp.

News of the atomic bombs, terrible as they were, brought hope that Arthur could finally return to Sydney. ‘The street was decorated with bunting ... everybody was in ecstasies except my mother, who still had no news,’ James remembered.

‘Then an official telegram came to say that he was all right. Letters from my father arrived.

‘They were in touch with each other and must have been very happy. My mother started counting the days. Then a telegram arrived saying that my father’s plane had been caught in a typhoon and had crashed in Manila Bay with the loss of everyone aboard.’
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His mother wept for weeks. ‘I was marked for life by her grief,’ James later said.


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