An old newspaper

[Stiletto]

I was going through some of my late Mother's stuff when I came upon a box of Dad's mementos of WWII. Folded in the bottom was this, dated May 8th 1945.

newspaperIMG20211015124257.jpg

[Sandlapper]

We lived on a small farm outside town and Dad drove all four of us into town to celebrate by running up and down main street and blowing the horn. I was 14 and well appreciated the significance of the event while still waiting for the pacific war to end which did not appear to be as close as it was.

[The Q]

At that date,
Granddad was missing presumed killed in the western deserts (he wasn't), one uncle was fighting in Burma, another was in the RAF in the UK, one uncle had been fighting in Europe.. Celebration was still to come...

[WX]

Czechoslovakia was not a country you wanted to be in in 1945 if you were German. The post war reprisals were brutal.

[Bill Perkins]

My father had to stay behind and be part of the policing of occupied Germany after the surrender. Tight wires were stretched across the roads in the night to decapitate the GI's moving in motorcycles or with jeep windshields folded down. That's one of the few wartime details he ever shared with me .

[Jim Bow]

My dad worked for a company called Climax Molybdenum in Detroit. He was a PhD metallurgist working on a new alloy to line the barrels of Naval guns. Top secret. In 1951 he was working for the Atomic Energy Commission and we moved to Oak Ridge Tennessee. There, he learned that the “gun barrel” he thought he worked on was actually part of the Manhattan Project.

[bluedog225]

If it’s a full section, the ads in the back can be interesting.

[Jimmy W]

My father was on a troop ship heading to the Philippines to be part of the invasion of Japan when the war ended. He was in the Railroad Transportation Office in occupied Japan.I found this in a drawer here yesterday. I think it is silk.

There is a stack of war time Life magazines up in the attic.

Japan flag.jpg

[Bobby of Tulsa]

My father was on a troop ship heading to the Philippines to be part of the invasion of Japan when the war ended. He was in the Railroad Transportation Office in occupied Japan.I found this in a drawer here yesterday. I think it is silk.

There is a stack of war time Life magazines up in the attic.

Japan flag.jpg

I have one just like that Jimmy

[Hugh MacD]

My father was on a troop ship heading to the Philippines to be part of the invasion of Japan when the war ended. He was in the Railroad Transportation Office in occupied Japan.I found this in a drawer here yesterday. I think it is silk.

There is a stack of war time Life magazines up in the attic.

Japan flag.jpg

My Dad fought through the Philippines and ended up with one with the "rays" on it. I think my brother ended up with that and I got Dad's diary and an old Japanese bayonet.

[Jim Bow]

Y’all reminded me of Guy Clark’s song:

[Andrew2]

I was reflooring the middle bit of the house, ripping out old pine, somewhat worm eaten planks. There was a bit of packing to level out one.It was a copy of the Le Petite Parisien, dated July 1914. Full of bits and pieces, but no mention of the horror to come.

[skuthorp]

Dad was on an Australian Corvette bombarding Japanese occupied islands. His ship was in Tokyo Bay for the surrender.
An uncle, ex RAF Bomber Command in Europe was flying Beaufighters in the Pacific somewhere for the RAF.

[Dan McCosh]

Don't have it any more, but working on the boat years ago, I found a New York Herald Tribune dated 1938, tucked in to hold the mirror in place. Not one mention of any pending problem in Europe.

[David W Pratt]

My father was in Luzon, flying a P-51. On the ship on the way home, the Chaplin offered the troops autographed copies of the Bible.

[JayInOz]

I think one of my sisters has all the newspaper clippings that my mother kept during and after the war. On my Dads farm years ago the old original slab farmhouse had newspaper jammed into some of the gaps and stuck on a couple of walls. I pried a piece of paper out of one of the larger gaps. It was from the 1880's and the headline read "State of the war in India" but the paper had deteriorated too much to be able to unfold it and get the details. I don't know what war was being fought in India at that time- must have been an internal conflict or fighting with the British I suppose. JayInOz

[dwr9]

My dad was on Luzon with the army at that point, I believe. Doug

[Sandlapper]

My father was in Luzon, flying a P-51. On the ship on the way home, the Chaplin offered the troops autographed copies of the Bible.

Was he the author?

[Rich Jones]

My father, Army Air Corps, was in California waiting to be shipped out to the South Pacific when the war ended.
We've still got his dress uniform and discharge papers.
He went to work for Grumman Aircraft as a draftsman after the war before going to seminary.

While renovating a house decades ago, I ripped up some flooring to find newspapers with stories and pictures of
Mussolini from the mid 1930's.

[Nicholas Carey]

My dad was in Germany with the 99th Infantry Division on VE-Day.

The fighting stopped, but they spent the next few months cooling their heels, coming back up to full strength, and waiting for orders to ship out to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan.

[Andrew2]

My father was in Luzon, flying a P-51. On the ship on the way home, the Chaplin offered the troops autographed copies of the Bible.

Bit odd that, as I assume he didn't write it?

Made me think of the original M.A.S.H. book, where the medics had a young Korean assistant, a natural for medical training. Trying to figure out a way of funding him to a US college, they dressed Trapper John in a loin cloth, tied him to a cross in the back of a truck and got the photo unit to run off lots of photos, which were then 'signed' .Toured the villages selling them to the gullible.. making more than enough money for the kids education.
I can sort of understand why that didn't appear in the film or TV series....

[LeeG]

I’ve been reading some of my mom’s letters to her older brother while she was workimg in Germany in 1947. She was a hell of a writer. Found some earlier ones when she had just turned 16 and preparing to go to Stanford.

[The Q]

I think one of my sisters has all the newspaper clippings that my mother kept during and after the war. On my Dads farm years ago the old original slab farmhouse had newspaper jammed into some of the gaps and stuck on a couple of walls. I pried a piece of paper out of one of the larger gaps. It was from the 1880's and the headline read "State of the war in India" but the paper had deteriorated too much to be able to unfold it and get the details. I don't know what war was being fought in India at that time- must have been an internal conflict or fighting with the British I suppose. JayInOz

Sounds Like the 3rd Burmese war, in todays terms British India was made up of, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh Sri Lanka, and Burma.

[Boatbum]

I was going through some of my late Mother's stuff when I came upon a box of Dad's mementos of WWII. Folded in the bottom was this, dated May 8th 1945.

newspaperIMG20211015124257.jpg

An understandably profound moment for him. He probably thought that life as-he-knew it was coming to an end when the war started and this signaled a return to normalcy. I wonder if that is what people will think when they look back on the past 5 years of political polarization and COVID. Is it the end of life as we know it, or just growing pains?

[WX]

My father was in the RAAF based on Morotai Island. He was in an aircraft salvage unit.

[chas]

Dad was in Stalag Luft 1 on the Baltic Sea, where he had spent the previous winter. Was flown back to England a few days later on a big American airlift. Never learned much about his time there, from him. / Jim