By: W.C. Reader

Where were you on August 6, 1945? If you are under 60 years of age, don't worry about trying to answer the question. You weren't anywhere; you didn't even exist. So the majority of you are going to have to depend upon history book, or the tales of us old-timers, if you really want to know what was going on in the world.

Now most of these present day old-times where of we speak were divided roughly into two groups. One group consisted of young men in the prime of life, who were in military uniform, and were engaged in conflict with racist forces at points all over the globe. The rest of you stayed at home and furnished supplies and support to all of the nation's troops who, directly or indirectly were engaged in conflict with the enemy.

Now as August 1945 began to unfold, World War II seemingly was in its closing months. Nazi Germany had been crushed by the United States, Great Britain and their allies. Their vast military machine was being taken apart, and most of the troops who served in the European theater were being hurried back home to be reunited with their families.

In the Pacific theater, where we were serving, the allies steadily had been pushing their foes back to the Japanese home islands, and it was only a matter of time before they were crushed. The only remaining question was how long, and when? And more important, who was going to do it? Surely it was going to be the traditional forces such as the Army, Navy, Air Corps (it was still that in 1945) and Marines. It was common knowledge that vast forces were being assembled in the Philippines (where we were), Okinawa, and the surrounding islands. In what possibly would have been the most bloody conflict in the war, these men were going to storm ashore on the Japanese islands and beat their opponents into submission. No one expected it to be an easy task.

But this was not to be. With only a few exceptions, only a few Americans know what was going to take place. Only they knew how abruptly the Pacific phase of World War II was going to end.

It started like this when Washington authorities, on August 7, 1945, issued a brief, cryptic message to the world, similar to this: "A single B-29 airplane, carrying a bomb which takes its power from the sun, dropped it on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, destroying it totally and killing 182,000 people." And how did we, who were on the scene react to this news release? Wonderment! We knew no more about what happened than you back on the home front. So it was also with the Japanese nation, which was too busy preparing to meet an upcoming invasion by the Americans and their allies.

Thus, the war went on for 3 more days, even though everyone but a few people were trying to understand what had happened. Particularly was this so amount the Japanese leaders, who were too stunned to think about surrendering.

On August 9, 1945, another atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, and the results were about the same as in the initial drop. About 75,000 lives were snuffed out in one gigantic flash. This time the Japanese did not hesitate. Not knowing how many of these bombs were still in possession of the Americans, they asked to meet with them on August 15 to arrange for an armistice, and the signing of a peace treaty, ending the war. On September 2, 1945, in Tokyo harbor, leaders of the two warring factions met on the battleship Missouri and signed the above-mentioned treaty. So, in the matter of a few days, those of us who had been preparing to enter Japan as an invasion army had our mission changed to that of an occupation force.

That's what we were doing in the closing days of August 1945. What were you doing?

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