Early in their retirement, my mother and father wrote autobiographies of a sort. 122 and 177 typed pages respectively, neither is a literary gem, but each reflects the personality of its author and is full of stories and recollections that are a wonderful link to the past. While mostly telling family stories, world events appear in both narratives, none more so than the Second World War.
I thought of my parents and their stories of the end of the war as some people think maybe we have come to a possible end of the pandemic. Even if it is the end, it doesn’t look as if we’ll have any Victory over Covid celebrations.
My mother had graduated from college a year earlier, and in May 1945, was living in New York City with some of her college friends. They had found an apartment on the Upper Westside. She tells the story of her May 7, V-E, Victory in Europe, Day: We all rode the subway down to Times Square where a milling mass of humanity was celebrating. Then we went to Radio City and got tickets to the Perry Como Show. There he was sitting on his stool singing about when the lights go on all over the world. We took the Staten Island Ferry across the harbor and saw the Statue of Liberty lighted up for the first time since the war had begun.
My father was a Navy officer serving in the Mediterranean. He writes, Rumors began to spread that the war in Europe was soon coming to a conclusion, and that our ship would be returned to the States, converted into a rocket ship and sent to the Pacific War…All ships present began to prepare to leave the Mediterranean. We joined a large convoy and headed west. We passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and soon pulled into port in the Azores. Continue reading
