Look Back: On V-J Day, Salt Lake City became a ‘cauldron of unrestrained joy’

Thousands of soldiers and civilians cheered victory as they took to the streets of downtown Salt Lake City on a drizzly Tuesday, Aug. 14, 1945. They mobbed Main Street and spread some 25-people deep in front of The Salt Lake Tribune-Telegram building waiting anxiously for confirmation — "It is over, isn't it?"

When the headline "Japan Surrenders to Allies" suddenly splayed against The Tribune's display windows, the crowds burst into a "cauldron of unrestrained joy."

Although national V-J Day would not become official until the unconditional surrender papers were formally signed Sept. 2, 1945, World War II was finally over.

Phones rang off the hook. Men, women and children (some in pajamas) left their homes in droves to take part in the downtown celebration. Roads became nearly impassable. Entire blocks appeared to be a "sea of undulating heads and faces."

Sporadic rain clouds drenched the multitude, but no one's spirits were dampened. Exulting and spontaneous, throngs of 20,000-plus people shouted and sobbed, sang and danced, drank, kissed strangers and took the night well into dawn.

According to historian Allan Kent Powell, in "Utah Remembers World War II," more than 10 percent of Utah's population saw military service. By June 1945, 60,764 Utah men and 1,343 women were serving in all branches of the armed forces: 9,592 were in the Army, including 105 Japanese-American soldiers from the Topaz Internment Camp; 8,306 in the Navy; 4,638 in the Marines; and 1,740 in the Coast Guard. Commissioned officers totaled 8,684.

The following month, the number of Utahns serving nearly doubled.

And then the war ended.

Today, 70 years later, there are those who distinctly remember Aug. 14 on Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City when victory was feted.

"I was 16 years old at the time with two brothers in the Navy, " Howard Randle told KUED-Channel 7's "Utah World War II Stories."

"My mother worried about them all the time. We would go to the movies and watch newsreels that showed soldiers and fighting men and tanks rolling and airplanes flying and she would come out of there with tears in her eyes thinking of her two sons," he said. "We didn't know where they were because they couldn't say where they were, and their letters were censored with words blacked out. Soldiers are heroes and myself, I would have enlisted when I was old enough, but it meant much to me that the war was over."

Going downtown that Tuesday was a "total thrill" for the youth. "There was such a fantastic display of friendship, I remember shaking everybody's hand," he said. "From First South clear down to Sixth South on Main Street, the streets were packed with people. Servicemen were kissing every girl they could find, and one huge glorious smile was on everyone's face mixed with [a sense] of relief. I'd never witnessed anything like that before or since."

Census taker Joe Mansuy, 76, couldn't get over the enormity of the excitement. Just a 6-year-old kid living near Liberty Park, he, his grandfather and his uncle Pete Haggerty wedged their 1939 Ford between other cars parked several blocks away, found Joe's mother, who worked for the telephone company on State Street, and slogged through "a human mass of people" to get to Main Street.

"Streetcars couldn't budge, car horns were constantly honking, people were dancing in the streets, and confettilike paper was falling from above," he said. "Service guys in uniform from Camp Kearns, Hill Field and Fort Douglas were kissing the girls. I heard some were on leave, and others were waiting to be shipped out. I was in Vietnam, but this — this Victory Day — was something you just don't ever forget."

At the war's height, nearly 60,000 military personnel were stationed in Utah, and some 14 military installations operated at full peak. Among them, Fort Douglas, headquarters for the 9th Service Command, expanded into a reception center for inductees and a "separation center" for those being discharged.

More than 90,000 airmen trained at Kearns Army Air Base. Heavy bombardment groups (including the 509th Composite Group that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) trained at Wendover Army Air Field. And Brigham City's Bushnell Military Hospital, one of the first to use penicillin, provided medical care for more than 13,000 Army personnel.

The moment the alarms sounded the news at Kearns base, Lewis Stage Line sent a fleet of buses on the hour, every hour, to pick up and drop off servicemen along Main Street.

"It was quite raucous," said Salt Lake City resident Rosanne Gordon.

The 13-year-old, her cousin Betteann and Aunt Cherry Cline rode the bus to State Street. They sat in the bustling and elegant lobby of Hotel Utah until, mustering courage amid the din, they stepped out onto Main Street.

"My cousin said we went downtown to kiss the soldiers," Gordon said. "I don't think I had ever been kissed before and I remember being grabbed, hugged and kissed. It was a wonderful occasion. No one was afraid. But, truly, my cousin Alan, who was in the Army, was finally coming home, and that's why we were so excited to be there and celebrate."

On the home front, an estimated 24,000 Utah women (Utah Rosies) were encouraged to "stand by their men," fill the desperate need for labor — and get paid.

These women took on jobs once exclusively held by men. They operated cranes, drove 3-ton trucks, became guards — "Pistol Packin' Mamas" — at Hill Field, and turned out as mechanics at the Ogden Arsenal. They riveted the tails of bombers, patched bullet holes, put ribs in wings, mended parachutes and, like Laurel Hughes, filled 5-inch-long, .50-caliber bullets with gunpowder.

"I was a Utah Rosie packing bullets at the Clearfield Depot," the 92-year-old recalled in a recent telephone conversation. "It was a fun job. I got extra money, a lot of freedom and was allowed to drive my friends to work in my parents' car. I probably drove too fast."

Hughes watched the jubilee downtown from her father's office on the 10th floor of the Boston Building. "He worked for the Internal Revenue [Service] and we had a good vantage point to see people in all kinds of dress, waving flags, carrying posters and shouting, " she said. "My brother fought in France and in Italy. He had bad times there, although he was lucky, luckier than others. He was careful not to tell us much, but he got a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. Thinking of him, I was proud to watch the revelry and relieved the war was over."

Throughout those years, Joanne McGillis nee Spitzer and her mother lived on Third Avenue. They rolled bandages at Fort Douglas, served breakfast to soldiers at the old Covenant House on South Temple, brought many home for dinner and kept track of their whereabouts and well-being.

"Some wrote, some never came back, and some were repeats for as long as they were stationed in Salt Lake," McGillis reported from her home in the Cottonwood area. "That day everyone was crying and laughing almost simultaneously. It was an explosive, all-consuming and almost-beyond-belief time.

"But it wasn't just a day on Main Street," she said. "It was a period of time that spoke to the enduring patriotism and gratitude toward all our soldiers. It was a time when people were still waiting for their loved ones to come home and grieving for those who couldn't."

Sent into action all over the world, 3,660 Utah soldiers died in service to their country. Among them, 1,450 were killed in action. Let us never forget.

Eileen Hallet Stone is the author of "Hidden History of Utah," a compilation of her Salt Lake Tribune columns. She may be reached at ehswriter@aol.com. To read more about Utahns during World War II, visit KUED's "Utah World War II Stories" page at http://www.kued.org/whatson/kued-local-productions/utah-world-war-ii-stories-victory.