TIME Magazine

Havoc at Honolulu

Most of the incredible facts of Japan's attack on Hawaii were given to the U.S. this week by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, who flew to Honolulu to get them

The Bombers are Growing

The world has not yet seen, felt nor imagined the full and awful might of U.S. air power

Battle of Detroit

Something is happening that Hitler does not understand—old American miracle war production, and its miracle-worker is the automobile industry

The First Offensive

The attack on the Solomon Islands has snatched the offensive from the Japanese in the Pacific. For the first time since Dec. 7 this priceless intangible asset is finally in U.S. hands

March From The Beaches

When we land we will meet German and Italian soldiers whom it is our honor and privilege to attack and destroy

Victory is in the Air

The R.A.F. and the U.S. Air Force are in head-on collision with the bulk of Germany's fighter-plane strength. The issue to be decided: Can Germany be bombed out of the war?

Meeting in Normandy

The armies were not yet locked in the full shock of decisive battle. But the day was at hand; the war in western Europe was about to enter a fourth phase

"The Fate of the World"

1944 was the climactic year of the war against Germany. It was not the last year of that war but it was the last full year

We Interrupt This Program

When the news came to the fighting fronts, G.I.s yelled, pounded, fired guns and drank whiskey. The celebration had tragic consequences : six men killed, 30 wounded

The Bomb

The war ended this week in the echoes of an event so enormous that, relative to it, the war itself shrank to minor significance

The First Victory

The events of last week in Europe were not only the greatest but probably the ugliest in human history

We Interrupt This Program

When the news came to the fighting fronts, G.I.s yelled, pounded, fired guns and drank whiskey. The celebration had tragic consequences : six men killed, 30 wounded

Posted Monday, Aug. 20, 1945 THE PEOPLE

We Interrupt This Program... A San Francisco electrical engineer named D. Reginald Tibbetts was sitting up late amid the clutter of radio equipment in his bedroom. At 4:27 in the morning (P.W.T.), listening to the dit-dah-dah of fast Morse, he began transcribing a Domei News Agency broadcast: "The Japanese Government are ready to accept. . . ." At the same time, in a white frame house in Portland, Ore., an FCC monitor picked up the same exciting news —Japan was officially offering to surrender.

After that, for too many hours and too many false alarms, the nation waited.

When the first news came to the fighting fronts, G.I.s yelled wildly, pounded backs, fired guns, drank hoarded whiskey. On Okinawa the night was lighted by millions of tracer bullets as men fired rifles, machine guns, antiaircraft guns. Green and yellow flares glared in the darkness. Ships offshore, fearing a Kamikaze attack, laid down a smoke screen, opened up with antiaircraft guns. Veterans had seen nothing like it during the whole battle for the islands. The celebration had tragic consequences : six men were killed, 30 wounded.

"Beectory." Manila echoed as soldiers drove jeeps and trucks madly through the dusty streets, blowing horns, beating on fenders with iron pipe. Over the din sounded the shrill voices of children screaming: "Beectory .. . beectory... ."

In smaller measure, it was the same wherever G.I.s gathered —in London, in Paris, and in lonely German camps. Wounded men in U.S. hospitals at home and overseas cheered excitedly.

The great Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth approached New York Harbor with a captured Nazi flag flying at her main mast, an effect achieved by laughing, shouting soldiers. Manhattan's excitable garment workers threw tons of paper and cloth shreds into the streets. But elsewhere across the nation there was little public demonstration.

In Indianapolis, Mrs. Marietta Buchanan, whose son was lost in the Pacific, cried with rage: "I'd like to fly over there and drop more bombs myself." In Tulsa, a newsboy hawking extras cried out: "Japs Surrendering." Asked a woman war worker: "Are there comics in this paper?"

Rumor & Vigil. The U.S. replied to the Japs, and again the nation waited. Rumors flew. The radio tried hard to keep up: "This is a Reuter's report of a Domei broadcast picked up by the Chungking Radio. . ."

Sixty-two hours after the first Jap offer the vigil, still continued. Then came the U.P.'s false report of final Jap surrender, and in the two minutes before it was denied a carnival din began. Firecrackers popped in Manhattan's Chinatown; searchlights swept the skies over Miami. Bonfires blazed in Pittsburgh.

Next day the vigil was resumed. But the guessing game had lost its fascination, everybody knew that the Japs had been beaten. The precise minute of capitulation no longer made much difference. Yet when the radio and press flashed the word that the Japs had accepted U.S. terms there were enough of vigilant stay-ups to start one more round of celebrations.

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