Kissing, crying and cheering
How local residents celebrated end of World War II 75 years ago.
Daytonians huddled around radios in homes and factories 75 years ago, eager to hear the news from President Harry S. Truman.
The president announced Japan had surrendered — officially signaling the end of World War II — and the lid popped off the city.
Crowds of ecstatic Daytonians clogged downtown hugging, kissing and cheering in the pouring rain as confetti and streamers filled the air.
“Bands, tin cans, shouting, ticktacks, bells, whistles — all added to the confusion and constant din… there was no organized parade… it just mushroomed!,” the Dayton Daily News reported.
Automobiles piled high with people waving flags, handkerchiefs and banners drove up and down Main Street with horns honking.
Guests of the Biltmore Hotel shook their pillows from the windows sending feathers onto the heads of the celebrating crowd below.
A man stripped down to his white undershorts and a raincoat while dancing a jig on top of a car parked on First Street.
The declaration of peace was a sense of relief after years of war.
Approximately 839,000 Ohioans, roughly 12 percent of the state’s population in 1940, served in the armed forces during World War II, according to the Ohio History Connection. Of those men and women, 23,000 died or were missing in action when the war ended.
“PEACE!” blared a newspaper headline in red block letters. The Dayton Daily News special edition sold like hot cakes on the street.
A soldier and a sailor were spotted kissing every girl they could among the joyous crowd. “Both emerged looking like battle-scarred veterans, their faces covered in lipstick.”
And across the city, factory whistles blew the Morse code “V” signal for victory instead of the usual long blasts.
The following morning the newspaper described Dayton streets strewn with confetti and torn paper after the city “spent itself in sweet abandon.”
“The memory of that night of nights for which a city waited and prayed through almost four years of ‘sweat, blood and tears,’ will endure forever.”