The Great Plains during World War II

12. War's End

The people of the Great Plains had anxiously awaited an invasion of Europe since December 1941, although some did so with apprehension. In January 1945 the Oklahoma City resident Eugene P. Graham, the secretary of the Oklahoma Bankers Association, asked Governor Robert S. Kerr to issue a proclamation calling for a bank holiday on ve-Day. He wrote, “There seems to be considerable apprehension among the merchants of Tulsa that this occasion will create a good deal of excitement as did the Armistice in 1918, at which time considerable property was destroyed.” He noted the merchants were preparing the close their businesses and board up windows. When the attack finally came, Gail Carpenter in Wichita wrote, “Our phone rang very early this morning.” When the family heard the news, he reported, “The muscles in our stomachs and throats tightened and the color must have gone from our faces.” But, “There were no cheers.” His family gathered around the table, listened to the “unveiled excitement” of the news commentators, and then spoke the names of the local boys they knew who were in harm’s way. That was, he wrote, “a personal matter to us.” In Dallas residents followed news about the invasion with “serious faces and playful hearts.” There, churches opened their doors early in the morning. At the Highland Baptist Church the organist played hymns in the predawn darkness after the news “flashed over the sleeping city.” Soon, nearly one hundred people sat in the pews, listening and praying; more than six hundred faithful trekked to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church. In Nebraska Martha Rohrke, a seventy-four-yeartwelve | War’s End war’s end 374 old widow in Haskins, made no note of the occasion in her diary, but her fellow Nebraskan Ruth Vaughn wrote, “D day the long awaited invasion has begun. We were awakened by fire whistles and bells at 6:00 a.m. It has been a world day of prayer. Please dear god—may it end soon.”1 The war in Europe ended for the residents of the Great Plains with solitude, loud noises, and a feeling of relief. In Wichita ve-Day came and went with little celebration. In Billings, Montana, Kathryn Wright captured the moment as well as anyone. When the war in Europe ended, she wrote, “local residents paused briefly, thankful that half the job was done, then went back to work with renewed determination to hurry the finish.” In Lincoln, Nebraska, Beatrice Vaughn also noted in her diary, “V-E day. How thankful we all are to have the suffering and loss of life cease in Europe. The nation is very solemn and thankful but no wild celebration.” On May 8, 1945, Denver residents celebrated the defeat of Germany by ringing bells and going to church, but with little outward excitement, following the news from President Truman at 7:00 a.m. Now their thoughts turned to the South Pacific. In Oklahoma City life continued as usual, except for “quiet jubilation.” City churches organized special prayer services.2 In the netherworld between the dropping of the atomic bombs on August 6 and 9 and the announcement of the surrender of Japan on August 15, Great Plains residents remained uncertain whether the nation was at peace or at war. When the news of the Japanese surrender came from the White House one Wichita resident reported, “Everyone old enough to understand the significance of the announcement immediately felt welling up within him the desire to do something to celebrate. Shouts of joy went up from the neighborhood kids. The air was soon filled with the continuous beeping of auto horns as drivers commenced to express themselves.” Gail Carpenter sat in a Wichita church and gave thanks for peace, but solitude escaped the few who sat in the pews. “The songs of praise,” he wrote, “the prayer of thanksgiving and the very fitting remarks of [the minister] arose against a noisy background of far more worldly activities.” City police closed the main drag of Douglas Street to war’s end 375 local traffic for several blocks, and an “effervescent crowd which seemed to include most of Wichita had congregated in the middle of the street which was littered with the waste paper thrown from the windows earlier in the evening.” Carpenter remembered, “It was a happy, milling mob of citizens all feeling the urge to do something...