[doug from upland]

The message is Aug. 11. I should have put that date, not Aug. 10, at the top of this piece.

[devolve]

On this date, Aug, 11, 1945 (VJ Day) The ship I served on during the War had been doing carrier plane guarding for a battle group in the Pacific.

When the Atomic bomb was dropped on Japan on Aug 6th, 1945, my ship was immediately ordered back to Pearl Harbor,  Arriving there on Aug 11 we were treated to the fantastic once in a lifetime spectacle  of one of the most impressionable fire power demonstrations one could imagine.

Every ship in the harbor lit the night sky with every kind of star shell, tracers. H/E and just plane small arms fire. This went on for hours.

This was a scene I shall live with forever and will never forget.

I was sitting in the old Pompano high school auditorium where  we listened to President Roosevelts speach declaring war on Japan in 1941 and here I was in 1945 in the very place it started and ended. 

I doesn't get any better than this.

 



Bud Garner