Roy Exum
I can’t remember ever asking readers for a favor. Oh, I have suggested stuff, like the 7-16 Freedom Fund that is aiding the children of those soldiers who were killed here last month, or kids who wouldn’t get to attend Orange Grove Summer Camp without a little financial push, but for the most part I have colored inside the lines.
Today I am appealing to anyone within the framework of my journalist voice to help me honor some giants. If you know any man or any woman alive who participated in World War II – The Greatest Generation – I beg you to drop all you are doing and bring them to our National Military Cemetery on Friday. Get there a good 30 minutes before the appointed time, which is 11 a.m., so you can maneuver a wheelchair or a walker or whatever it takes to get that hero in front of the flag pole that sits over the sacred ground that honors our veterans.
This week marks the 70th anniversary of V-J Day (Victory in Japan). On May 8th our Chattanooga Area Veterans Council celebrated V-E Day (Victory in Europe) which was huge, but Aug. 15 is the key because it meant World War II was finally over, which meant 315,000 men and women from Tennessee were coming home.
I know it’s a stretch; a 20-year-old sailor who celebrated V-J Day would now be 90 years old, but what if, in this last inning of a veteran’s life, they could see a wreath laid in honor of the 5,731 Tennesseans who gave their all? An organization called “Keep the Spirit of ’45 Alive” has been instrumental in asking Governor Bill Haslam to proclaim Aug. 9-16 as “Spirit of ’45 Commemorative Week”.
The wreath ceremony tomorrow will last approximately 30 minutes and families/friends of World War II veterans who sleep in our National Cemetery are warmly invited to take part. Of course, the public is also urged to attend and help honor the remaining few of “The Greatest Generation.” The Governor’s Proclamation praised World War II men and women for providing “a model of unity and community that continually serves as a source of inspiration for current and future generations of Americans … “
It was on Aug.15 when Emperor Hirohito went on public radio – the first time most in Japan had ever heard his voice – and announced surrender. On Aug.6 and Aug.9 of 1945 we had just dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a shell-shocked Hirohito knew the war must stop.
He told the Japanese people, "Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization."
Actually, V-J Day is a little confusing. Governor Haslam’s proclamation claims Aug.14 is when the surrender was official, but Aug.15 is the official V-J Day for our European allies. In the United States V-J Day is not recognized until Sept. 2. The Japanese recognize Aug. 15 as “Memorial Day for the End of the War” while Korea, after thousands were taken for Japan’s forced labor camps, calls Aug. 15 “Liberation Day.”
The reason America does not recognize V-J Day until September is because President Harry Truman signed an executive order that V-J Day would not be celebrated until the surrender was signed in ink. On Sept. 2, 1945, the USS Missouri steamed into Tokyo Bay, allowed a group of stone-faced Japanese officials to board, and the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was officially signed on the deck of the battleship.
There are other big events this week. Chattanooga’s Charles Coolidge, who is today Tennessee’s only living Medal of Honor recipient, will take part in a three-day salute in Nashville. Now 94 but still “sharp as a whip” according to a stirring article in the Nashville newspaper, Mr. Coolidge will be honored with several other World War II veterans at the State Capitol as part of Nashville’s “Spirit of ‘45” tribute.
The ceremony to lay a memorial wreath at the National Military ceremony is expected to last about 30 minutes. At 2 p.m. on Saturday a huge tribute to the soldiers who were slain in Chattanooga by a terrorist on July 16 will be held at UTC’s McKenzie Arena. Vice President Joe Biden and Ashton Carter, the Secretary of Defense for the United States, will be among many dignitaries who will honor the memory of four marines who were killed and a Navy sailor who died two days later.
How strong was the “Spirit of ’45?” Know this: In the decade prior to 1940, America's shipyards launched only 23 ships. In the five years after 1940, American shipyards launched 4,600 ships. San Francisco Bay Area shipbuilders produced almost 45 percent of all the cargo shipping tonnage and 20 percent of warship tonnage built in the entire country during World War II. The war lasted 1,365 days. In that span of time Bay Area shipyards built 1,400 vessels - a ship a day, on average. How’s that!
Let’s do another, compliments of Wikipedia: “In 1939, total aircraft production for the U.S. military was less than 3,000 planes. By the end of the war, America produced 300,000 planes. No war was more industrialized than World War II, and never forget this: It was a war won as much by machine shops as by machine guns."
royexum@aol.com