(U.S. and British warships anchored in Sagami Wan, outside of Tokyo Bay, Japan, on the day the Allied ships entered Japanese waters, 27 August 1945. Photographed from USS South Dakota (BB-57) as the sun sets behind Mount Fuji’s distinctive cone) Official US Navy Picture).

They did it again. There was another release of documents late on Friday, by the time I had already established a pre-holiday beachhead at Front Page and was contemplating the last three days of the Big Pink Pool being open for the regular season.

Of course I know it will be open for two days next weekend- but being last in the water tomorrow will seal the deal on The Streak of 14 consecutive years, first and last in the water for the official regular season.

I tried my best not to contemplate the contents of the material that was released- the explanations I saw scanning email over the weekend regarding the FBI’s “302” case notes of their interview made me bilious.

But oh well, if that is how we intend to govern the nation, who I am I to complain? It is not like there are not three other flawed candidates to choose from.

But, with two days to go in the regular pools season (a last weekend beckons, and it always howls and rains) and then there is the prospect of Autumn- and more of this endless campaign that has yet, in any meaningful way, attempted to deal with the issues confronting the nation in anything but lame sound bites.

There was a time when things seemed to matter. I always look back to the generation that fought World War Two for inspiration. The best and brightest had given themselves completely to a cooperative and all-out effort to crush evil, and they had good ideas about how to do it. . This week, seventy-one years ago we had a new President, Harry S Truman, and the smell of triumph in the air.

On September 2nd, the formal surrender was conducted on board USS Missouri (BB-63), proudly parked with other members of the US THIRD Fleet in the Sagami-wan, outside Tokyo Bay. Our Pal Mac Showers was being readied for a courier delivery that would take him to Yokohama and Yokosuka, courtesy of his boss Eddie Layton to see the vanquished enemy.

The next day, the feared Japanese Commander in the Philippines, Gen. Yamashita (who may or may not) have had all the Chinese gold pillaged in the Occupation) formally surrendered to skinny General Wainwright at Baguio, in the picturesque green mountains of Luzon.

As our day began in Washington, Japanese troops on Wake Island surrendered. Tomorrow, the Brits are going to land in Singapore, and attempt to redeem their honor in the largest mass surrender of Empire Forces in their storied imperial history.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day as well. The Soviets are going to complete their occupation of the Kuril Island chain, where they will remain for the next eight decades.

Next week is going to be big as well- on the 8th, General MacArthur will enter Tokyo on September 8, while U.S. Forces will also land at Inchon to occupy the Peninsula south of the 38th Parallel. In a useful move, Japanese forces will surrender the next day.

Still to come is the capitulation of the Japanese garrison in Burma (9/13) and the ambiguous surrender of the Japanese on Taiwan (10/23to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-sheck, which led directly to the unusual status of the island which has lasted down to our day.

I would say it was a good week for the Greatest Generation. The dropping of the atom bombs was weeks ago now. The last combat casualty of the Pacific War had occurred back on August 18th. Killed by Japanese fighters was Sgt. Anthony Marchione, 19, a photographer’s assistant on the B-32 Hobo Queen II. The pilot who pulled the trigger was a man named Saburo Sakai, a Zero ace who I met years later in Yokosuka.

There are already issues cropping up about the Peace, and how the Occupation are going to be run, but it appears, on the whole, that most of what people were thinking was about how to get home and get on with life. Part of that was the effort to create the generation of the Boomers, the last gasp of which is vying for the Presidency this year.

It is always a tectonic shift when a generation’s scrawny fingers are pried from the Tiller of State. William McKinley was the last President of the Civil War Generation that loomed so large in the Nation’s polity after. George H.W. Bush was the last of the World War Generation. I am hoping that once this next administration does it’s turn on the stage, we can consign it to the annals- if not the ash heap- of history.

Based on the contents of the case notes revealed deep on a holiday weekend, the comparison with the men and women who won World War Two is not a pretty one. I think we can agree on that.

(Gunner’s Mate Second Class Charles J. Hansen working on a 40mm quad machine gun mount, during the battleship’s shakedown period, circa August 1944. Note his tattoos, commemorating service on Vincennes (CA-44) and shipmates lost with her in the Battle of Savo Island on 9 August 1942. US Navy Photo).

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
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