At last, victory in Europe.

The Atlanta Journal, May 7, 1945: GERMANS SURRENDER SIGNED AT ALLIED HEADQUARTERS.

As a child, I heard Lowell

Thomas reporting on the war, sensed the anxiety of worried parents, learned

why not a gleam of light could escape the house during air raid drills.

I recently had the loan of a cache of old newspapers ­ substantiation

of the memories of the dwindling few who were adults in those wartime

years ­ and felt as though I had opened a paper time capsule.

A reporter went to Union Station

to interview arriving passengers first hearing the good news, "calmly

at first, then with increasing jubilance." Men with lathered faces

jumped from barber chairs to buy newspaper extras. Two German prisoners

of war heard their MP guards talking about the news. One prisoner spoke

English, and the guard turned to explain to him that his country had formally

surrendered.

liquor, wine and beer were not to be sold on V-E day and the following

two days.

There was other news: Eastern

Air Line Profits Up 150 Pct, "... according to an announcement by

Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, president and general manager. ..."

A week later appeared a short

story about Charles Jones, 15, son of Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Jones of Fairburn

becoming an Eagle Scout. His brothers Billy and Forrest were overseas

with the Navy.

An Atlanta Constitution ad

described a rather tacky-looking pair of $5 wedgies as "non-rationed

gay casuals."

Most of the classifieds I looked

at were less blatantly racist than I'd have expected. Perhaps advertising

for a "girl" or a "boy" for menial jobs was the code

of the mid-century South.

An ad for a secretary stipulated

an unmarried woman "who knows bookkeeping and stenography. Salary

commensurate with ability, efficiency and personality. Address in personal

handwriting giving education, use of tobacco, religion, home affiliations,

age, height, weight" ­ to a P.O. box.

Death was segregated, one section

of obits tagged "colored," the rest undesignated.

I couldn't help noticing a

dearth of self-help columns like those that fill our papers with advice

on raising kids, manners and ethics. There was, however, a prediction

of military homecomings had worn off. Women had learned to cope without

men, had even discovered that they could fill traditionally male jobs.

Many marriages rushed through in the passion of the moment would crumble

for want of a sure foundation.

Moreover, she opined, divorced

women were going to find out that while they may attract men by their

worldliness, few would want to marry them, especially if they had a child

tagging along.

Another prediction was that

radar would have peacetime application, making sea and air travel safer

in the post-war world. There was no mention of its use by police in monitoring

traffic.

The comics included Captain

East, Donald Duck, Alley Oop, Mandrake, Abbie and Slats, Li'l Abner, Nancy,

Ella Cinders and others.

At last, August 1945, and the

war was over. The Call Bulletin, a now-defunct San Francisco daily, screamed:

M'Arthur Takes Over! ­ Gas Rationing Ended ­ "Iron Fist"

Rule for Japs.

The news that "the Japs

capitulate and accept terms of peace" was greeted with local celebrations

so riotous that seven people died. Some were run down by careening cars.

A couple burned to death after passing out with lit cigarettes. A car

was smashed on a railroad crossing. A sailor fell down an open stairwell.

There was a picture of a woman

smiling from her Seattle hospital bed, holding twins she had delivered

on V-J day. She named them Vic and Jay, even though Vic was a little girl.

The babies' daddy was a private at Camp Roberts, Calif.

National church leaders issued

statements and prayers expressing thanksgiving and calling for the Allies

to be merciful in victory, to "rebuild ruined cities and to house

the homeless." This sentiment took hold in the American people and

ignited support for the Marshall Plan. Then-New York Archbishop Francis

Spellman published a prayer for peace "in obedience to thy laws.

Thou callest us to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to defend man's

rights and God's rights ­ to win back men's hearts to thee and make

man worthy of thy trust in him by man's trust in thee."

Previously classified information

became public almost immediately. The Call Bulletin revealed that 230

paper balloons from Japan had floated to the West Coast, from Alaska to

Mexico and as far east as Michigan, carrying bombs and incendiary devices.

In fact, a book published by the Smithsonian Institution Press in 1973

indicates that the Japanese released more than 9,000 hot air balloons

between November 1944 and the following April. Nearly 1,000, intended

to wreak havoc on cities, forests, and farmlands, reached North America.

"Except for killing six

persons who tampered with a bomb near Lakeview, Oregon, perhaps causing

two small fires [in some woods and in a turkey farm] and diverting manpower

for investigation and control, the balloons flopped badly as a war weapon,"

the paper reported.

Tragically, those who died

were children and a minister's wife on an outing, killed when a curious

contraption they hauled out of some woods exploded. The last balloon found

was in Alaska in 1955, its payload still lethal. Hundreds more were never

found.

U.S. strategy ­ to keep

Japan from knowing of the bombs' effectiveness ­ succeeded. Having

learned of only one bomb reaching its target in Wyoming and failing to

explode, the Japanese stopped launching them.

The press was credited for

its contribution to national security ­ by what it did not

publish.

Colu

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