We Interrupt This Program

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.