RI Last State Still Marking V-J Day

[VintageJess]

R.I. last state still marking V-J Day

By CHELSEA PHUA, Associated Press Writer

Church bells rang. Whistles at fire stations and mill factories sounded. People poured into the streets, waving flags and honking car horns. It was Aug. 14, 1945 — the day Americans learned that Japan had surrendered, ending the costliest conflict in human history.

"It was pandemonium with happiness," remembered John Lucas, a World War II veteran and executive secretary of the Pawtucket Veterans Council.

On Monday, Rhode Island will once again observe the end of World War II, the only state still celebrating Victory Day, commonly referred to as Victory over Japan Day, or V-J Day.

Critics say it's discriminatory, and would like to eliminate the holiday or at least remove its reference to Japan.

They point out that Rhode Islanders do not celebrate the U.S. victory over Germany, which was defeated three months earlier.

"This is a stigma against the Japanese whom we do business with and are allies," said George Lima, a former state representative who worked on a failed attempt to eliminate the holiday in the 1980s.

Veterans groups remain committed to the holiday, celebrated on the second Monday of August.

"This is the way the veterans feel about it in Rhode Island," said George Panichas, a former legislator who was a gunner on a B-17 bomber during World War II. "They fought against the Japanese, and they just don't forget it."

There have been several attempts to change the holiday's name, but each time lawmakers met overwhelming opposition, said state Sen. Rhoda Perry. She introduced bills in 1992, 1994 and 1995 to change the holiday to Rhode Island Veterans Day. A second 1995 bill would have changed it to Peace and Remembrance Day.

Perry said she received "vitriolic" mail from veterans.

"It was absolutely a no-winner," Perry said. "I did not have support, period."

However, the General Assembly passed a 1990 resolution stating that Victory Day is not a day to express satisfaction in the destruction and death caused by nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

People need the holiday to remember the sacrifices veterans made during the war, said James Brennan, a survivor of the 1942 Bataan Death March in which Japanese soldiers tortured and killed thousands of American and Filipino prisoners.

However, Brennan said he does not harbor ill feelings toward the Japanese and does not believe the holiday incites racism or hatred.

"July 4 is our national holiday because we defeated England. Do we hate the English? No," he said. "It's the same with V-J Day. We are the ones who won the war."

Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Washington, said he is glad Rhode Island has kept the holiday.

"Rhode Island is continuing to celebrate a great victory at a tremendous cost," Davis said, noting the deaths of about 400,000 Americans in World War II.

Arkansas is believed to be the last state to drop Victory Day. When the legislature listed official state holidays in 1975, it omitted Victory Day, which it had called World War II Memorial Day, state capital historian David Ware said. The holiday appears to have been omitted without much fuss, Ware said.

"What happens over time is that people's memories fade," said Marilyn Zoidis, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. "If there's not a strong enough memory to support a holiday, there's no strong reason to keep funding it."

That's what some hope will happen in Rhode Island.

Mikki Lima, a Japanese-American who runs the Rhode Island Japan Society in Providence, said she is working to educate younger Americans about Japanese culture. If the holiday can't be eliminated, she hopes it can at least be celebrated under a new name because of Victory Day's implicit reference to the victory over Japan.

"Someday, this foolish holiday's name will be changed," Lima said.

 

[Lincsong]

It is very sad when so many lives were interrupted and ended, when so much human capital and money was wasted fighting a racist and diabolical nation that we cannot celebrate the absolute victory of good over evil any longer. When political correctness overshadows those brave young men, like my great-Uncle John Rodrigues who died in the Phillippines and is buried in the Golden Gate National Cemetary, because some may feel "stigmatized". Japan and the world are better off today, 61 years later, because of the defeat. Japan continues to reap the economic benefits of a peaceful nation. While millions of children were orphaned because of Japanese agression from 1932-1946. No one is attempting to hold or blame the Japanese of today for what happened then, we are merely celebrating a good hard won victory in the most important war in hundreds of years. Remember; November 11 is a celebration of our victory over Germany in WWI.

 

[magneto]

...
Arkansas is believed to be the last state to drop Victory Day. When the legislature listed official state holidays in 1975, it omitted Victory Day, which it had called World War II Memorial Day, state capital historian David Ware said. The holiday appears to have been omitted without much fuss, Ware said.

"What happens over time is that people's memories fade," said Marilyn Zoidis, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. "If there's not a strong enough memory to support a holiday, there's no strong reason to keep funding it."

If we apply *that* logic, I guess we should drop July Fourth and Thanksgiving as holidays as well, since no-one is around to remember them! :eusa_doh:

 

[Weston]

Speaking as someone who has been to Japan, and loves that country with all his heart, it hurts me that our two countries had to go to war in such a manner so long ago. A terrible loss of life on all sides. But...

the fact remains, that they came over to our land, and in a dirty sneak attack, started a fight. And we licked 'em good. End of story. Victory is to be celebrated, especially when the men who made it back to tell us of that victory still live, and even more so when they are gone.

 

[LaMedicine]

As a Japanese

Who has lived some years in the US and been educated in US public schools, and loves the US very much, it still hurts to see the references because it implies a lot of things. Politically correct you may say, but as with the definition of harrasment, it is more the difference in how the words sound to the referred groups.
On the other hand, come to think of it, both the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sponsor large scale memorial services which are broadcast nationally every year on the respective days of the A bombs, so I guess we are even there. Not that these memorials are a triade aginst the bombs, but a reminder to us each year how precious but precarious world peace is right now, with many nations toying with the idea of nuclear weapons.
So long as these days are reminders to continue our efforts to keep the world peaceful, I suppose there are things that can let be.

As for the sneak attack, documents from both American and Japanese sides have already proven that it was never meant to be a sneak attack, only a series of unfortunate events led it to end up in a sneak attack.
American intelligence knew of the impending attack and were closely following the move of the Japanese ships, but never warned Honolulu.
The Japanese Ambassador was instructed to deliver the declaration of war at a certain time, before the scheduled attack, but was prevented from procuring an appointment with the Secretary of State, I think it was, and was able to deliver it only after the fact.
The Commander of the Imperial Navy was flabbergasted when he learned that the attack had taken place before the declaration was delivered because he had been assured that the set time for attack would be immediately after the declaration, and not before.
Both men are said to have been deeply disappointed with and regretted the sequence of events that acutally took place, especially since they both understood the implications of such an attack and that it would make Japan a rogue nation in the worlds' eyes.

At the time my father was posted as the commercial attache of the Japanese Embassy in Washington DC, two wings of the embassy building dated from the pre-war days. There was an underground tunnel between the two wings, with the old communication room situated right off the hallway. Every time I passed through the passage, I wondered if these were the exact rooms where the communications for diplomatic negotiations leading up to the war were received and sent.

No ill feelings, I hope.

 

[PADDY]

Celebrate Peace..?

Every so often this comes around time and again in the Lounge, celebrating VICTORY over a conquered opponent/enemy..etc.
Usually when an anniversary comes around, such as VE or VJ day or whatever.

Strangely enough, those who lived through those war torn times often do not want to talk about 'those times' in any great detail or glorification, especially regarding their personal parts they played, and, if they do talk, it's in very general non specific terms.

And certainly, something that again comes across, is the feeling of celebrating the importance of PEACE, rather than glorifying VICTORY.

Irrespective of our genders; nationalities; religion; skin colour; language; dialect; uniform design, etc, etc...whatever can be used as an excuse to create differences between us...

We are all human beings beneath it all and we all have our similar hopes and fears, and I'm pretty sure that most of us would rather live in a world of peace that celebrates peace, rather than a world of victories and sabre rattling that is built on the blood of our countries' youth. Sometimes, bloodshed that leads to victory is sadly necessary to establish peace (something I have been involved in, in the past), but I'd rather celebrate the 'peace' that has been achieved.

Just stand back for one small moment of your time, and look at all the great international friends we have 'just here alone' on TFL. I certainly have good friends from Japan, Germany and Italy as well as many other countries around the globe.

So, ask a veteran, whether British, American, Japanese, German, Korean, Vietnamese..etc, and you might be surprised by how much they have in common too in their humanity and belief in a peaceful world, not a victorious one.

 

["Doc" Devereux]

Well said! :eusa_clap

 

[VintageJess]

Paddy and LaMedicine,

Both excellent posts. I have been enjoying this thread a great deal, and learning even more.

I have been very fortunate in the last few weeks to spend some quality time talking to Marine Corps veterans of World War 2. It is amazing how much raw emotion is still there when they begin to talk about their experiences in places like Guam, Okinawa, Tarawa, Pelileu...

One of the themes that continually pops up is their recognition of their buddies who were killed in combat. They do not want their friends, Willie and Joe, to be forgotten, nor the sacrifices that they made to be taken for granted.

Certainly peace is the ultimate goal, but it often comes with a price. In this instance, we had to defeat an enemy to obtain peace. So, I don't feel that most people intend to be divisive by celebrating V-J day. I think it is more about recognizing those brave souls who saw a horrible thing happening in their world, and voluntarily put themselves in harm's way to stop it. They endured some of the most brutal combat imaginable, in some of the most horrific conditions possible.

But they endured. And, I for one, would hate to think of what this world might be like if they (and our brave GIs in the European Theater) hadn't. And indeed, to me, that is what any recognition of V-J Day should be about.

Jessica

 

[Lincsong]

VintageJess- well put.:eusa_clap
LaMedicine-no hard feelings on my side.

I look at this as a nation vs. nation victory not the caucasian vs. asian victory that those on the American Left try to make this out to be. I know several people whose fathers and grandfathers were in the 442nd in Europe during WWII. They were American soldiers period!

I know men who were on the Bataan Death March. I personally know people of mixed Asian/Caucasian blood whose family members were put in burlap sacks and bayonetted by the Imperial Japanese Army merely because their blood was "poisoned". Victory should be celebrated, especially when millions, not just a tens of thousands, but millions died. Like I said earlier; we are not holding the Japan of today responsible for the acts of the Japan of 1930.

 

[LaMedicine]

VintageJess, you are right that no one should be forgotten. On both sides.
One of my father's cousin never came back from SE Asia. My great aunt spent years and years, and tons of money, travelling to all corners of Japan, trying to find people who fought with him, who knew him, tyring to find out what really happened to him, never being able to believe that he had died in combat. It was more than 20 years before his grave was made, with nothing in it but an empty box. Even after it was built, I was told that she still did not accept his death. For every death, there would have been a woman like her all over the world.
It is not only the men and women who went into the battlefields, but the heart aches of those back home that makes war tragic.

There are many dairies and memoirs coming into light only now, as well as the top secret papers that have been released to the public 30, 40, 50 years after WWII, that shed light on the politics of how the world headed for war, and how all the attempts at preventing it had become futile efforts.
Many of the private papers on the Japanese side are being released only now, because the authors were very close confidants of the late Emperor Hirohito, and even though they kept memoirs and diaries, these were kept confidential, until after the death of all the concerned parties.

A lot of TV documentaries have been released here in the past few years on the events leading up to the war, with documentation and interviews from both sides, and the political power play depicted is no less than scary. How a few select group of people can stubbornly steer any number of nations towards war. Not just one side, but on both sides.
Watching what is going on in the world now, it makes me wonder if any lessons were really learned.

It is because of the blood bath of the past that we understand the preciousness of peace, but it is also tragic that only after great human sacrifices that people seem to come to their senses and work for a more productive future.
There are still so many spots in this world that are yet to see this.

 

[MrBern]

times square kiss

Totally forgot about this:
http://www.timessquarenyc.org/about_us/events_vjday.html



A CALL TO ARMS...AND LIPS!

 

[Clyde R.]

What a powerful, thought provoking thread we have here.

Everyone has expressed themselves so beautifully and with such obvious heartfelt conviction. Where do I stand on this? I think ultimately it is up to the people of Rhode Island to decide how or if they want to celebrate the day.

It is certainly understandable if the surviving veterans from Rhode Island have strong opinions on this issue. Survivors of the war, no matter who they are or where they are from...are entitled to their own opinions and feelings about the war, and its ending and the peace that followed.

I admit I am not entirely un-biased about this. My family fought in WWII in the Pacific and I grew up in a Marine family and around Marine veterans. The perspectives of these tough warriors were hardened in battle and tempered by the adversity of an uncertain peace. I admire the Japanese people and their culture, but not the authoritarian regime they suffered under in WWII. I am glad that regime was defeated.

Yes, I am glad that victory was achieved. And while I agree with Paddy's sentiment about peace, the stubborn pragmatist in me believes that a victory over the evil that men do- and are still doing- is sometimes needed to achieve peace.

I asked a veteran of WWII in the Pacific how he felt about it and that is...pretty much what he told me.

That is just my opinion and I bear no Loungers ill will and hope I have not engendered any hard feelings. I am enriched by the diversity of opinions and viewpoints here. Thank you.