60th anniversary of VJ Day; where were you?

Today is the 60th anniversary of VJ Day (Victory in Japan) that ended World War II in 1945.

I was 16 years old and working for the local telephone company in Berkeley, California as an operator. Those where the days when you lifted your telephone receiver and an operator asked, "number please." The office was a large square room surrounded on all sides by wall "boards" containing plug slots with a small light above each slot. Behind the boards were thousands of electrical lines, like spaghetti, attached to each slot. When you wanted to make a call, your home's telephone slot light would shine, notifying the operator that you wanted to make a call. When the telephone number (example, Ashbury 3570) you wanted was heard by the operator, a line would be plugged into your slot that connected you to the "B" board operators on the other side of the room. That operator would locate the telephone number you wanted and plug a line into that slot and the phone would ring at the site of the number you were calling. Long distance calls were transferred to another office. Our office also handled calls from pay phones, where the operator listened to different tones identifying the coins that were dropped in the call box.

On August 15th, I was working the day shift, which ended at 4 pm. I was working my board as usual when, suddenly, slot lights starting blossoming all around the office. Soon, the office was lit up like a Christmas tree. I knew immediately that something important happened. As I plugged into the lighted slots on my board, people were crying, laughing and cheering, telling me that Japan had surrendered and the war was over. They wanted to take to their family and friends, but it was almost impossible to connect them because everyone was on their phones.

The world's telephones were lighting up telephone offices all around the world. It was still going on when I left the office at the end of my shift at 4 pm. I didn't have a car, so I started walking down Shattuck Avenue, the street on which the trolly cars ran, toward University Avenue, where I could catch my bus home. I got about two blocks down Shattuck when I encountered a solid line of sailors and soldiers running the full width of the very wide street. All the girls had to kiss each military man down the entire line, with great glee of course, in order to pass through the barricade. I suspect some girls when through the line two or three times.

I eventually returned home, taking much more time than usually because the streets were packed with celebrating people. At home, I turned on the radio to hear the news, and wept, hoping that the killing might finally end. I immediately thought of my best friend Tazako and her family and hoped that they soon would be released from the US concentration camp in which they were interred after the Pearl Harbor attack.

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