Today (09/02) is...

....known as V-J Day here in the USA. It comemorates the day in 1945 where the formalities took place aboard the battleship USS Missouri that was anchored in Tokyo Bay where the formal instruments of surrender of the Japanese Empire to the combined allied nations were signed.

General Douglas MacArthur presided over these formalities, thus officially ending World War II.

Approximately nine months and a few days later, yours truly was born. Not sure if my birth had any connection with those activities that happened aboard the "Mighty MO," but, then, maybe they did. :smilewinkgrin:

I had two uncles that fought in WWII (one in Europe & one in the Pacific). My father worked in a defense plant assembling aircraft, and my mother worked in a clothing factory that made uniforms for the Army.

Most of us here on BB can still remember what they were doing when they first heard of the 09/11/2001 attacks. My parents remembered what they were doing when they first heard the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor that Sunday evening in December of 1941.

About 25 years ago my mother traveled to Hawaii on a senior citizens' cruise. One of the highlights of her trip there was to visit the USS Arizona Monument that is built right over that sunken battleship in which most of her crew still remain entombed.

I asked her how she felt as she looked out at that oil slick that still flows from within the bowels of the USS Arizona. She told me that it was such a feeling of emptiness that words cannot fully express.

 

Here's a link for a narrated newsreel of the surrender proceedings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcnH_kF1zXc