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World War II should have ended 50 years ago today.
It didn't.
After the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb Aug. 6, 1945, the Allied
leaders privy to details of the massive destruction expected Japan to capitulate.
It took a second bomb and five more days before Emperor Hirohito on Aug.
14, 1945, called a halt to nearly four years of fighting.
When the news reached the Tri-Cities late that afternoon, there were moments
of disbelief before the reality of peace hit home.
The Tri-Cities, like the rest of the United States, erupted into spontaneous
singing, shouting and dancing in the streets as news reports confirmed Japan's
surrender.
"It was a wonderful madhouse," recalled retired Pasco fireman
Gene Bailie. "People were kissing and hugging and climbing on cars."
Bailie and his boyhood friend George Keene had wandered to Pasco's downtown
at Fourth and Lewis streets and found themselves in the middle of a celebration
waiting to happen.
Twice in the previous days, there had been radio rumors of Japan's surrender.
And twice there was disappointment.
"After two false starts, it took considerable time for the populace
to realize that the surrender had actually come," The Pasco Herald
wrote that day.
"The whole town is wild," the newspaper observed.
"People waited before their radio to find if this one also would be
called a false alarm as the two others had been ... but this appeared to
be the real thing and the town and the surrounding vicinity really let loose.
"Where all the people came from no one knew, but they were there and
all were happy. All the pent-up emotions of almost four years of war let
loose as people got ready to make a big day of it.
"Old friends and neighbors met each other on the street. They threw
their arms about each other's neck and kissed each other hysterically ...
then whirled on down the street to greet another old friend equally rapturously.
"The long wait had been hard to bear. Feelings were pent up too tight.
The false alarms (of surrender) had served to heighten the tension in the
hearts of the public.
"And when the real and soul-thrilling announcement came from President
Truman ... emotions spilled out of those tight hearts. All neighbors and
friends forgot all conventions and embraced and tooted their horns ... and
shouted across the street ... the war was over."
And Bailie - then a 14-year-old junior high student - was in the thick of
that celebration. In fact, it turned into a profitable day for him.
"The Pasco Herald printed some 'Extras' that day, and someone from
the paper came over to George and me and asked us if we would take a stack
of about 100 'Extras' and give them away (for free).
"We said 'Sure,' " he remembers. "Then we charged people
a nickel."
Bailie later married Bev Williams, whose mother Bertie, now 87, also remembers
the day Truman announced Japan's surrender.
She had a personal reason to be joyful.
"It meant my husband was coming home," she recalled. "I began
counting the days."
Allen and Bertie Williams had moved to Pasco in 1942. Soon after, he was
drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps, which later became the Air Force.
Across the Columbia River, the same jubilation was going on in Richland
- the town where plutonium was made for the Nagasaki bomb.
"We were elated our efforts had been successful and brought about the
end of the war," said then-Hanford chemist Obie Amacker of Kennewick.
Allied leaders had been waiting for Japan to surrender since the first bomb
fell on Hiroshima.
And when it finally happened, here's how the Richland weekly Villager reported
the news:
"It's peace ... This is finally IT."