Editor’s Note: The Chestertown Spy has teamed up with the C.V. Starr Center for the American Experience at Washington College to share the stories of local residents who experienced World War II, either on the Home Front or as Veterans. Students and staff have already interviewed over a hundred people about their experiences during World War II. Each installment presented in The Spy includes an audio clip of an interview, along with the corresponding transcript. You can find more audio clips and interview transcripts at storyquestproject.com. If you have a story or artifact to share, please contact Deputy Director of Starr Center, Pat Nugent, at [email protected] or 410-810-7161.
Fenton Martin: VJ Day Announcement at Navy Yard
I was in the Navy yard working on a dock beside a naval vessel, I think a destroyer, as I recall. And the Navy yard was full at that time of destroyers and even some aircraft carriers that had come in for repairs after concentrated kamikaze attacks where you know the Japanese pilots would commit suicide by just dive bombing into the ships. The guts of those ships were just blown right out.
And I remember walking by one of them when over the ship’s loud speaker system came, “We have an important announcement to make: the war is over. Japan has surrendered.”
Of course they had mechanical drafting boards and big tables so we had a huge room there with maybe a hundred draftsmen. And the head of the office was there as I came back in, and he was in the process of saying, “Well, it looks like we all better be looking for another job.” And he took his mechanical drafting board and turned it upside down, and everybody started laughing.
But, of course, there was a riot of celebration, as much as you can do in an electrical drafting room. But, yeah, there was a great sense of pleasure and relief because no doubt, the casualties were going to continue if we didn’t [end the war].
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