Wartime Wednesday: VJ Day

Wartime Wednesday: VJ Day

(An Encore Post from Heroes, Heroines, and History)

“This day is a new beginning in the history of freedom on this earth. Our global victory has come from the courage and stamina and spirit of free men and women united in the determination to fight.”

President Harry S. Truman

By August 1945, America had been at war for almost four years, Poland and England for six. Victory in Europe day was declared in May 1945, but conflict still raged with the Japanese, whom it seemed would never give up. In fact, no Japanese military unit had surrendered during World War II. Despite being victorious for the Allies, the battles on Iwo Jima and Okinawa were devastating with heavy losses.

Plans were made to invade the Japanese home islands, however, prior to execution of the operation, on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the atomic bomb, the first of its kind, on Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. On August 10, Japan notified the Allies of its intent to surrender on August 14, 1945.

 
As soon as the news was released on August 14, celebrations began across the globe. The United

Kingdom announced its official V-J Day would be the following day, August 15, 1945. September 2nd, the date the surrender documents were signed is the official US commemoration. In Japan, August 15 is known as “memorial day for the end of the war.”

In London, people took to the streets, civilians and members of the armed forces alike. One article reported soldiers dancing in a conga line on Regent Street. In Paris, Frenchmen paraded on the Champs-Elysees singing “Don’t Fence Me In.” In Berlin American soldiers reportedly shouted, “It’s over in the Pacific.” The Chinese set off fireworks, and in Manila residents were said to sing “God Bless America.” In Washington, DC, a crowd yelling, “We want Harry,” tried to break into the White House. They were unsuccessful.

New York’s Times Square filled with the largest crowd it had ever seen, with kissing, dancing, and singing. One of the most famous photographs, a soldier kissing a woman who appears to be a nurse, was taken in Times Square and published in Life Magazine. Life also reported that news of the war’s end “sparked a coast-to-coast frenzy of {servicemen} kissing…everyone in skirts that happened along."

Tragically, some celebrations, such as the one in San Franciso, was categorized as a “three-night orgy of vandalism, looting, assault, robbery, rape, and murder.” Another article called it the “deadliest riots in the city’s history.” Additionally, Japanese soldiers murdered POWs, then committed suicide. Fortunately, these incidents were few.

V-J Day was bittersweet in light of the worldwide destruction and death. As historian Donald L. Miller, Ph.D wrote, “For those who had seen the face of battle and been in the camps and under the bombs—and had lived—there was a sense of immense relief.”

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A Lesson in Love

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Her friend talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, blonde leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0

Photo Credits:
VJ Day in Times Square: By New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer: DeMarsico, Dick, photographer. - Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c19650, Public Domain.
Civilians and Soldiers in London: By Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer. From the collections of the Imperial War Museums. Public Domain.
Soldier in Times Square: By Victor Jorgensen - US archives, Public Domain.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_over_Japan_Day
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/VJ-Day/
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/v-j-day
Legacy of VJ Day: A Modern Sailor’s Tribute to Inspirational Grandfather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dlZKR2h0-A
https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Experience/VJ-Day/

Mystery Monday: Crime Writer Mabel Seeley

Mystery Monday: Crime Writer Mabel Seeley

I love to immerse myself in the books that would be read by my characters. It’s especially fun for me to sometimes find little-known authors or authors who were wildly popular at the time but have fallen into obscurity. Today’s author, Mabel Seeley, falls into the latter category.

Born Mabel Hodnefield in 1903, in Herman, Minnesota, a tiny hamlet nearly two hundred miles northwest of Minneapolis. Still small, the town boasted a population of 437 in the 2010 census. I can’t imagine how much smaller it must have been in the early part of the last century.

When she was seventeen, her family moved to St. Paul where she attended Mechanic Arts High School, then went on to graduate summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota. Her love of writing grew from exposure (and perhaps classes with) Mary Ellen Chase a scholar, educator, and author in her own right who was teaching there at the time.

Mabel married fellow UM student Kenneth Seeley in 1926, and they moved to Chicago where she got a job writing advertising copy for a department store (a background that would be the setting of her first book, The Listening House published in 1938). After her husband developed tuberculosis, they returned to Minnesota for his medical treatments. He recovered, but they divorced sometime later.

After WWII, she and her son moved to Colorado. An avid midwesterner, Mabel set all her books in

Minnesota. She delved deeply into her research for each book, going so far as to visit a North Shore lake at night time to capture an eerie feeling. She also ran through fields of tall, dry grass to see how grasshoppers respond when startled. For another book, she spent time in her uncle’s grain elevator to experience the wind whistling in the bins and to hear the talk of farmers. (Now, that’s research!)

Most readers, even devoted mystery readers, are unfamiliar with her work, but she was highly popular during her lifetime. Her books were highly praised in some of the most noteworthy publications of the day such as Saturday Review and The New Yorker. The Saturday Review of Literature named The Crying Sisters (1939) best mystery of the year, and The Chuckling Fingers won Mystery of the Year award in 1941. An early member of Mystery Writers of America, she served on the organization’s first Board of Directors.

Long before modern feminism, Mabel wrote female protagonists who were “smart, frank, and strong-willed.” The characters are typically middle class working such jobs as librarian, copywriter, and stenographer. The heroines are not private investigators, but rather women caught in unusual circumstances requiring them to fight to save those they love.

Unfortunately for readers, Mabel married attorney Henry Ross in 1956 and chose to stop writing, telling one reporter that she did so to devote more time to her marriage. She passed away on June 9, 1991.



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About Murder at Madison Square Garden

The dream of a lifetime becomes a nightmare.

Photojournalist Theodora “Teddy” Schafer’s career has hit the skids thanks to rumors of plagiarism. With any luck, a photo spread with Charles Lindbergh at the America First Rally will salvage her reputation. After an attempted assassination of Lindbergh leaves another man dead, Teddy is left holding the gun. Literally. Can she prove her innocence before the police lock her up for a murder she didn’t commit?

Private Investigator Ric Bogart wants nothing to do with women after his wife cleaned out their bank account and left him for another man, but he can’t ignore the feeling he’s supposed to help the scrappy, female reporter who is arrested for murder at the America First rally. Can he believe her claims of innocence and find the real killer without letting Teddy steal his heart?

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/31qK17