How peace fell on S.F.
Never-published photos and forgotten reports show the curious effect — and then the rejoicing
The photo negatives have been sitting in an old filing cabinet in The San Francisco Chronicle’s basement archives, untouched for decades, forgotten for almost that long. The newspaper has countless articles and images documenting the details of
World War II and the Bay Area’s important role as a military port. But these 1945 photos are more illuminating than the others, covering three San Francisco events at the end of the war — V-E Day, V-J Day and the Victory Parade. When we view them in 2015, the realities of life in the city during wartime come into sharp focus.
The end of the war against Germany and Japan exposed post-traumatic stresses in the population that haven’t been seen on such a large scale since. Residents and soldiers stationed here responded first in stunned silence, then with horrible violence on the streets and
finally with a once-in-a-lifetime public tribute. Chronicle photographers were on the streets in force for each event, expertly capturing the complex emotions. They shot hundreds of photos, including some of the most memorable images in the newspaper’s extensive archive. But only a few were seen by readers in 1945. Seven decades later, these photos offer a glimpse of the city at its best and worst, and a great reminder of the sacri--
fices of a dying generation. Victory in Europe Day, on May 8, 1945, is remembered now as a time of momentous celebration, officially marking the end of the Nazi menace. But San Franciscans seemed to react with a combination of disbelief and increased resolve. Citizens who weren’t fighting faced their own burdens in the name of the war effort. Most had lost a loved one or neighbor in World War II, or had a son or brother who was getting ready to ship out when Japan surrendered. Look at the faces in the photos, and it’s as if they don’t trust the news. Here’s what the reporting shows: Chronicle reporters and photographers walked the streets expecting celebra--
tion, and were greeted mostly with an eerie silence. There was still fighting in the Pacific Theater. The party would have to wait until every child, sibling and father was on his way home. page The column, Chronicle’s summed Royce up Brier,his readers’in a frontfeelings: “There has been a quizzical spirit so far as one could feel it in America, in San Francisco, these last days, and a reluctance to go off the deep end even with such a burden as the European
physical menace lifted,” Brier wrote. “The ogre is dead, and yet you have not the heart to rejoice.” The pages of the newspaper describe business as usual for a city that had been hardwired for years to sacrifice for the war — no recycling program or rationing effort in the 21st century will ever match the organization and execution achieved by the Greatest Generation. Stores and churches were open on V-E Day, but bars were still closed. The list of Army and Navy casualties for Northern California ran as usual, as did the daily Chronicle feature telling citizens which rationing stamps they could use. (“Gasoline: A-15 coupons valid for four gallons each until June 21.”) “Celebrate V-E Day by giving your blood,” a headline blared on the top of The Chronicle’s front page. A story about the V-E Day celebrations appeared on Page 3, reporting about a party that didn’t happen. The V-E Day photos taken by Chronicle photographers, none of which appeared in the newspaper the next day, tell the story even better. A group of children salutes the flag. A crowd at the opera takes a moment of silence. A group of men looks somber reading Extra editions of the Chronicle in Union Square. A woman continues to pray at the feet of Jesus Christ in a church. It was a time of reflection. But it was not the end. “V-E Day, they called it in the sad, self-conscious symbolism of our alphabetic time, and it never came,” Brier wrote. “Yesterday was not it. The drink, if any, burned your throat, and the laughter, if any, had a metallic ring, like that of a child when it doesn’t understand some merriment, but doesn’t want to say so.” It turns out that some celebration might have been healthy, or at least prepared police and military officials for the emotional release that was to come. V-J Day on Aug. 15, 1945, when the Japanese announced that they would surrender, still stands as the deadliest riot in San Francisco history. Thousands of revelers, including many young men who had just learned they wouldn’t be going to war, poured into the streets. With no planned events — theaters were closed and plans for band performances canceled — drunkenness and chaos ensued. Windows
were broken and liquor stolen, and libidos ran unchecked. The Chronicle photos show men in sailor uniforms, bottles of booze in hand, tearing the city apart with an animalistic fervor. Young men and a few women climbed to precarious heights on statues, streetcars and the sides of buildings. Many were hurt in falls. Everyone in power or in a position to help — City Hall, the police, doctors — seemed blindsided. “The total given emergency treatment in the city’s hospitals had reached the 1,000 mark,” The Chronicle reported the next day. “But doctors weren’t sure because they were still too busy taking care of the injured to bother with bookkeeping.” Police who tried to arrest sailors were reportedly threatened and accosted by other military men. Citizens who tried to intervene were often attacked. And city workers who tried to manage the growing infrastructure mess feared for their safety. This from a second-day Chronicle story on the riots: “Claude Mansfield, a watchman at the City Hall, reported that on Wednesday night a crowd of civilianPolk street hoodlumsdoors of smashedthe Municipalone of the building, tore a phone off the wall when he attempted to call aid and departed with his time clock. ‘I’m lucky that I am alive,’ Mansfield commented in a postscript to his formal report on the raid.” earlier The had Chronicle,been listing which the just fallen weeks overseas, published a similar list of revelers and innocents who had died on San Francisco streets. “JOHN BATCHAN, 80, retired bank clerk at 1100 Taylor Street, died at San Francisco Hospital of a fractured skull suffered when he was struck on the head by a metal wastepaper basket filled with water as he walked along Geary Street Tuesday night in front of the Stewart Hotel,” one notice read. Also among the dead was a 34year-old railway inspector, killed while trying to undo damage caused by celebrants; Chronicle photos show one vandal on top of a streetcar, swinging broken connection cables like a lasso. Another local couple, married just that afternoon, were hit by a drunk driver on Van Ness Avenue. The newlywed wife was killed, and her Navy seaman husband was injured. The military was placed in the embarrassing situation of policing its own and adopting a lockdown — in the Navy alone, 100,000 sailors were stationed in the Bay Area — while different agencies shirked blame and pointed fingers.
Military leaders and police prepared for more violence, but shame must have set in; or maybe the hangovers were just too severe. Even with thousands more sailors arriving, the streets were quiet after the riots. The Chronicle, once again, ran almost no photos of the event. A grand jury investigation was announced, then seemed to disappear. Reports suggested the damage was done by outsiders stationed in the Bay Area, not by local residents. After the cleanup was over, city leaders, police and the press seemed to want to forget it ever happened. For someone born decades after World War II (this writer included), seeing these photos and reading the articles has an intense humbling effect. The current generation argues over water rationing politics, when our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents rationed so much more. We complain about oil prices and traffic, when wartime civilians could only dream about a gas tank full enough for a drive in the country. We throw lavish street parties as an excuse to drink, while the Veterans Day parade in San Francisco faces an embar--
rassing dwindling of spectators each year. What do the handful of survivors of World War II think as they head down Market Street every November? Do they think we all forgot? Or do they just close their eyes and try to remember a much bigger parade? After V-E Day and V-J Day, San Francisco was in need of an inspiring third act, and on Sept. 9, 1945, found proper closure. The grand Victory Parade down Market Street is still the greatest parade in the city’s history, appropriate in every way that the riots were not. This time it was about civic pride, not blowing off steam. It was a time to honor fallen Bay Area soldiers, not indulge in primitive urges. As 20,000 military personnel marched down
Market Street and 500,000 watched, civilians were honored for their sacrifice and soldiers were honored for their service. The survivors gathered one more collective breath before finishing the job of building this city into one of the greatest in the world. “San Francisco, yesterday, poured out its heart to those who kept the faith with the peace-loving and freedom-loving peoples of the world,” The Chronicle’s parade story began. “Still close to the costliest and most destructive war in history, they were people with sober thoughts. There were thousands who stood and watched with heartaches. These thousands were slow to let their emotions break loose.” Chronicle librarian Bill Van Niekerken contributed to the research of this article.