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Daily News from New York, New York • 345

Publication:
Daily Newsi
Location:
New York, New York
Issue Date:
Page:
345
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

'efa? Busts LmseutJPImi I 'Ms Biggest 'Hango wr I A is my New York City celebrated war's end last if you want a rough idea By JOHN O'DONNELL of what it was like, take New Year's Eve at Times Square, an old-time mining inEW ir (tws Into ty Ltvmess Harlem had its own balcony scene last night. camp on pay night, Brooklyn the day the Dodgers last copped the pennant, and i ii i n. Washington, D. Aug. 14.

This Washington day was one of 'confusion hourly worse confounded. At one moment, peace threatened an immediate outbreak. At the next, the capital lapsed back into the routine of war. The befuddling experts of diplomacy, codes and world communications managed to mess up the business of ushering in peace as thoroughly as they had messed up the business of keeping it. If we had to have things snarled up on a global scale, the.

boys had picked a good day for it- Today marked the fourth anniversary of the birth of a famous so-called document which seemed to say one thing, meant another, and finally didn't exist at all. VTe have in mind the birthday of the so-called Atlantic Charter, that bit of international folderol dreamed up by the late Franklin D. Roosevelt to hide from the citizens of the republic the real purpose of his famous shipboard conference with the now politically deceased Winston S. Churchill. Real purpose of course was ta get the secret pledge from F.

D. R. that this nation would declare war on Japan whether we were attacked or not, once Britain became embroiled in the Far East. In case you may have forgotten we doubt if the people of the Baltic republics and Poland have Roosevelt and Churchill in Article 1 of that merry compilation of diplomatic gag lines, proclaimed "their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other," and in Article 2 stated: "They desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned." A Short History of an Unwritten Document. On Aug.

14, 1941, the White House gave the "text" of the charter to a waiting world as F. D. R. rushed back to the Wrhite House. Then, four years ago this week, with great pomp and ceremony and ecstatic hosannahs from the Roosevelt world savers, the Atlantic Charter, as a formal signed document, was sent from the President of the United States to the honorable members of the 77th Congress of the United States of America.

The distinguished lawmakers were given copies of the Atlantic Charter "signed" by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. The zealous OWI ordered hundreds of thousands of charters printed and declared global psychological warfare on all doubters and skeptics. Then on Dec. 19, 1944, F.

D. R. pulled the rug from under the charterites. At his White House press conference he announced the charter never existed as a document, was never signed, and there could be no copy of it because there never was an original. Thus World War II departs this life as it entered amid confusion, befuddlement.

double-talk. How the Common Soldier Lives at Versailles. From the pile of overseas service mail, we've found one particular letter that is interesting for two reasons: It contains the first gripe that the wife of the particular CI has heard from her soldier husband since he donned a uniform, and it voices, among other things, a rousing blast at U. S. Army living conditions in beautiful Versailles, once the royal playground of the Bourbons and such lovely doxies as Pompadour and Du Barry, now our headquarters for the Seine section base.

The letter comes through censorship and the soldier has written us permission to use it, provided we withhold his name until he gels home and he thinks that will be some time off. "You know this Armv is playing in cahoots with parties at home," he writes, "and we are all inclined to believe that they don't want to let us get home too soon. We reason on this basis: they shipped us like cattle and the same type of ships that took us over with 3,003 men aboard are going back with 500 men. It stinks to high heaven. It's up to you people back home to get after the Congressmen to investigate this rotten business.

"All we can do is to keep this deal in mind and when we are once again in civilian status to make those dirty blanks responsible for 'Keyed up to bursting point after a series of false starts, the city loosed a thunderclap of shouting and horn-blowing TA i them surrounding the station. They were so excited they didn't catch the first few words. But they heard: Japan accepts surrender terms Roar of Celebration. That was all they wanted to hear. Up from 200.000 throats rose a mighty roar, and it was echoed and reechoed from one end of the city to the other.

The Hudson River made its contribution with a shriek of boat whistles, and the East River replied. A blizzard of torn paper descended on te streets. As the Timts Square crowd picked up in (Continued on page 7, eol. 3) Jf If 1 Displaying lots of spirit (some of it bottled), these revelers hit it up in Times Square. sh that the Japs had really sur- seconds after receipt of the-fla 4sh ST I tr lit I' i in the borough closed up their shops ar.d went out arm-in-arm with their employes to join the revelry.

Along First in front of the Army base in Brooklyn, ef-figes of Hirohito hung from every electric light pole between 58th and while servicemen stoned them. War veterans' hospitals were not impervious to the contagion. Men in beds or in wheelchairs managed to forget their troubles with cheering. Westchester Whoops. Even Westchester County went slightly nuts.

Most of them poured out of their homes into the tree-lined streets. Kids formed parades, banging tin pans and blowing horns, and in some cases the adults joined them. New York City celebrants added tire to the horns and the yelling. au mis nusiness pay tftrough the nose. "We are across the street from the Versailles Palace, in buildings as old as the palace itself and where they once billeted the palace guard.

The place is unsanitary and a firetrap if I ever saw one. Our latrine is a cesspool out on the grounds with a tent for a cover. I've lived lots cleaner out in the field. Our washroom and showers are down in the cellar and when you wash or take a shower the stink of the sewer drain is nauseating. Of course, the generals and the officers don't live like this.

"Today, the service paper Stars and Stripes had big headlines about the critical discharge point score remaining at 85 points. "Well, it sure fooled the hell out of us. "The Army and the War Department had us all hopped up about going to lower the score and now they pull this one on the boys overseas. "Know whr.t 1 think? Well, I believe that they could let plenty of us guys out of the Army right now, but that they are afraid to do it, because they are not ready for us back in civilian life. A Farce That Congress Does Nothing to End.

"By that 1 mean that they have been promising all the GI Joes their jobs back and all that stuff, and now that they have been called face to face with those facts, they know that they can't fulfill their false promises and realize that they would have more than they could handle if they let the men out now and there were no jobs for them. "Believe me, sweetheart, Congress and the people back home are faced with a very serious crisis. It seems that the Army has taken to dictating to both Houses on Capitol Hill and the people. "You mark my swords. Something real serious is going to come of this, if things are not taken in hand real soon.

You realize that even though the great majority of us fellows are civilians at heart, we are under the iron rule of the Army, and the very fact that we still have a war on with Japan prevents us from speaking out or perhaps in even taking action as seen fit. "Do you, or anyone else, for one moment believe that England is throwing her full resources into the war in the East? Is France contributing toward ending the affair? No, my pet, it is all a big farce and Congress is doing nothing to put an end to it. we would only send the Chinese troops one half the aid we sent to Russia the Japs would have been finished before the krauts. Boy, am I sure hot tonight? "I guess I sound radical but 1 can't help it, for it's just how I feel about the whole matter. I want to get home to my family and so do seven million other Joes." rendered.

Focal point of the city's celebration was Times Square. At 10 P. three hours after the flash arrived, a crowd estimated by police at more than 1,000,000 was jampacked in the area from 40th to 52d between Sixth and Eighth Aves. The mob that gathered there to celebrate V-E Day was a "mere" 500.000. Broadway blazed with light a few minutes after the news of the surrender arrived, although it wasn't even dusk.

After night fell, the Army Signal Corps set up searchliehts at the southeast corner of Broadway and 43d St. and turned them on the Statue of Liberty replica. The light flung a silhouette of the statue 15 stories high against the Paramount Building. It seemed last night as if every subway and bus and trolley car operating in New York was made for the sole purpose of conveying people to Times Square. And the more vehicles, the more noise.

But Chinatown Rejoices But there were some that didn't po to Times Square. Every little neighborhood in town shared in the celbration. Chinatown went into the traditional sacred dragon dance reserved for the Chinese New Year. The lower East Side went wild. Out in Brooklyn, store proprietors along1 Flatbush Fulton Street and other main stems Ine perspiring hre department reported it was it's "heaviest night." At least 50 alarms came in before 10 P.

18 of them false. Traffic Is Stopped. By 7:30 P. Broadway and Seventh Ave. from 34th to 59th Sts.

were filled with people. Traffic came to a dead stop. Times Square first heard the glad tidings via a WNYC mobile station at 43d St. There was a mere 200,000 gathered in the square at that time, with 3,000 of (SEWS lolo Sailor Al Caperna unfurls Old Glory atop lamp post in Times Square..

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Pages Available:
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Years Available:
1919-2024