VJ Day

1945: Allied nations celebrate VJ Day

From The Independent:

The 60th anniversary of the Japanese surrender, which ended the Second World War, was celebrated across the country yesterday.

More than 2,000 musicians, schoolchildren, veterans and serving soldiers joined in the Last Parade in Glasgow, marching from Blythswood Square to George Square, where a service of remembrance was held for 600 of the men killed in the war.

More than 25,000 visitors gathered in the grounds of Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, to recapture the spirit of wartime Britain with music, dance and songs from the 1940s.

...Lord Blandford, one of the festival's organisers, said of the soldiers who risked their lives for their country: "In this VJ Day 60th anniversary year every opportunity must be taken to acknowledge their contribution."

From the New York Times:


Edith Shain, 87, gets a chaste kiss on the cheek from Carl Muscarello, 78. They have been identified as the nurse and sailor whose photograph became a symbol of V-J Day. A statue beside them is a more exuberant recreation of the original embrace.

A hot, angry mob of photographers stood pressed together yesterday on a platform in Times Square, shouting orders at a tiny old lady.

"This way!" hollered one photographer.

"One more time!" yelled another.

"You got to kiss him on the lips!"

"She doesn't want it!" said another.

The woman, Edith Shain, 87, smiled politely but refused to grant the man by her side a kiss on the lips as she says she did 60 years earlier in the Alfred Eisenstadt photograph that captured the euphoric end of World War II. In that picture, a sailor dips a nurse in an embrace that Mr. Eisenstadt likened to "sculpture."

But yesterday, each time Carl Muscarello, 78, pulled Ms. Shain in for a kiss, he got her cheek.

The photographers moaned. The event organizers pleaded. The sun beat mercilessly down. Then, finally, Ms. Shain relented.

A kiss was exchanged between the diminutive woman and the former New York police detective that held all the passion of brushing elbows. It was hardly the spontaneous picture of elation captured in 1945, but the cameras clicked and rolled, their operators satiated.

The re-enacted kiss was staged by the Times Square Alliance to commemorate the 60th anniversary of V-J Day, when thousands of ebullient New Yorkers spilled into the streets to celebrate the Japanese surrender. Veterans also gathered yesterday aboard the aircraft carrier-turned-museum Intrepid.

Vintage aircraft flew over, a memorial wreath was tossed into the Hudson River and a swing band played 1940's favorites.

An aluminum statue depicting the famous kiss drew crowds yesterday afternoon to Broadway and 43rd Street, where organizers handed out white sailor caps and roses, encouraging people to join in the kiss re-enactment.
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Note from This Day in History:

1945 - Proclaimed "V-J Day" by the Allies, a day after Japan agreed to surrender unconditionally. In a recorded radio message, Emperor Hirohito called upon the Japanese people to "bear the unbearable" and lay down their arms.

**The Japanese surrendered on August 14, but the surrender wasn’t announced until this day………So, V-J Day is recognized as the 15th, even though it should be the 14th.**