V J DAY

Word came to Oahu about dusk.  The Japanese (we called them Japs at the time) were prepared to surrender unconditionally.  Because we had all been psyching ourselves up for the invasion, the first reaction was quiet shock.  This passed quickly into a wild state of euphoria unlike anything I had ever felt or witnessed.

Following the December 7 attack in 1941, the Island had been ringed with anti aircraft guns and searchlights.  As the word of surrender reached the gun crews they began firing fringe tracers and star shells in jubilation.  Searchlights whizzed back and forth as fast as men could move them.  It was a giant fireworks display!

I wanted to see it all and so I took the elevator to the top of the diving tower at the sub base.  It was about 110 feet high and gave a great view in all directions.  There were only a few of us up there and I soon realized that our admiral, Charlie Lockwood, was leaning with his chin on the guard rail next to me.  He was grinning from ear to ear.  The destroyers and some other ships in the harbor joined in and began firing.  The admiral in charge, CINCPAC, was sending signals to stop but they went unheeded.

One of the star shells came down on the dock just at the foot of the tower.  It was an ammunition dock!  A small fire started and quickly got our attention.  If the dock blew, we were history.  Miraculously, a fire brigade arrived almost immediately and the fire was easily put out.

After an hour or so, the people at CINCPAC got control and the Island was quiet again.  Now we all began thinking about peace and the surrender and shutting down the submarine war.  All the boats on patrol were ordered home.  Everyone was in very high spirits with jokes and songs and back slapping.  Some days passed.  I don’t remember how many, maybe one, two or three.  I was at lunch when one of the sub base communications officers who was a friend of mine sat down beside me and told me I was going home.  My first thought was that he was having a cruel joke since I had been making plans to join Eli on a destroyer and go to Japan. 

I grabbed him and told him I wasn’t having any such jokes.  He assured me that orders had just come through whereby anyone with certain decorations including the Silver Star were automatically to be released from active duty if that were their desire.  I didn’t finish lunch, but raced back to our office and typed my request and took it to the personnel officer, Red Ramage, a real hero who held the Congressional Medal of Honor.  He, like many other career Navy types, was shocked and somewhat disappointed the war was over.  He almost threw me out of his office and was critical of my request.  I was a rat deserting the ship.

My orders came through to proceed to Los Angeles and the separation center there.  Wonderful!  But all transport was headed to Japan, not the USA.  I was a sad cookie.

I was sitting in the O club with one of the skippers who was sad, too.  His wife was in San Francisco and his boat was stationed in Pearl.  I was privy to the operations office and knew one of the boats headed in from the war zone was to proceed to SFO and that skipper’s wife was living in Pearl.  I asked the op officer if he had any objection to swapping skippers and in that high mood I think he would have approved any request.  When the incoming boat docked, we approached the skipper and he was elated.  My commission, of course was a ride home in the boat going to SFO.

Let me flash back.  When I arrived in Western Australia we had been at sea a LONG time and I had hardly seen a female for over a year.  Nurses didn’t date ensigns and jg’s.  But there were lots of girls in Perth.  We were taken to the junior officers’ rest camp at a place called Applecross.  The US Navy had plenty of everything including ladies’ hose and even ice cream, while the Australians were in severe rationing.  It was during this time at Applecross that I met and fell for a lovely Australian lass named Belle Reeg.  We had a big thing going very quickly and I saw her almost daily for two or three months until I was ordered back to Pearl.  We continued to correspond and discussed serious plans for the future.

Back to the war’s end.  The boat headed to SFO was ready along with six other boats and I dragged my duffel bag aboard.  Since the new skipper knew me better than any of the other officers, I was given the honor of “taking her out.”  We backed away from the dock and nosed into the channel.  In accordance with harbor rules I rang up one third ahead.  The skipper rang up all ahead full and away we went.  The harbor entrance is very narrow and there was a net tender there to close the net at night.  The chief saw us coming and began waving his arms for us to slow since our wake was going to cause him trouble.  I still had the con and looked at the skipper who didn’t blink.  We almost splashed the chief and his tender up on the beach!  It was exhilarating.  As we passed each ship in the harbor with our “going home” pennant flying they would blow their whistles and wave. 

Once we were at sea I was relieved from the two-hour watch I had stood.  We had twice the normal complement of officers aboard so we stood half-time watches.  I went below and was shown the bunk I was to share with one of the ship’s regular officers.  When it came time for me to sleep, I lay down and saw on the overhead a picture of Belle Reeg!  It was inscribed “Black, black, black is the color of my true love’s hair.”  I was shattered and our romance was over.

Twenty five years later I was sent to Western Australia by Alcoa and made an unsuccessful effort to locate Belle.  A few years ago Millie and I had a grand tour of Australia, thanks to Arvi Parbo and Alcoa.  While in Perth we stayed with Sir Brodie Hall and his wife, Jean.  I told her this story and she vowed to find Belle.  Some months later she sent me Belle’s address and I wrote to her.

We’ve exchanged two or three letters since and I will look her up if ever we get back to Australia.  She is now a widow and it sounds as if life has not been too kind to her.

We traveled to SFO in a formation of seven boats and kept station as the surface ships do.  It was a unique experience.  We ran at night with our navigation lights on, something I had never seen.  I spent a few days in SFO and proceeded to the separation center in LA.  The people there were in the process of organizing the center and unprepared to process anyone.  The WAVE officer in charge of my case said I would have to muster every morning until they were ready.  I thought that was ridiculous and said so.  She threatened to dock my pay and I told her to be my guest.  I gave her my phone number and told her I’d report when they were ready to separate me.  I was staying with Aunt Mae Murphy on Franklin Avenue. 

In a few days she called and I was the first officer through the center.  The mayor and I had our picture taken on the steps and I was OUT!

PS:  As plans were being put together to invade Japan I knew I was going to be involved.  Given what we had seen in previous battles where the Japanese fought to the end and until every man had been killed, we all knew it was going to be a bloody affair.  People were making wills and rearranging their personal affairs.  We were all pretty grim.

Then came the news of the atomic bombs!  I have always felt those bombs saved my life and the lives of many of my friends and shipmates.  Don’t fall for the revisionists and their theory that we shouldn’t have used the bombs.  The revisionists weren’t there!  And remember always that if there had been no December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor there would have been no bombs used in Japan!