Fort Miles Remembers VJ Day
The 8th Annual VJ Day Ceremony at Fort Miles honored veterans and their families and remembered the official end of World War II.
It’s not often that Labor Day and VJ Day end up on the same date as they did this year. It brought a crowd of a couple of hundred visitors. This was an appropriate venue to remember VJ Day, at Fort Miles adjacent to Barrel 371, one of the 16-inch guns that was mounted on the U.S.S. Missouri near the table where the Japanese delegation signed the surrender documents on September 2, 1945, officially ending the war. Lani Spahr, an Air Force veteran, is seen here playing the bagpipes.
“Estimates of the total number of people who died in World War II range from 50 to 85 million, which is about three percent of the world’s population at the time, says Will Short, the master of ceremonies. “This makes World War II the deadliest conflict in human history,” he pointed out.
Most deaths were a direct result of military engagement, Short explained, but many died from war-related disease and starvation. United States casualties included 419,400 civilian and military personnel killed in action and another 671,801 wounded. That’s more than a million casualties suffered by just the United States.
“I want people to remember the Delawareans who made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve freedom during World War II, without any question, they went out and put it all on the line,” Short says, “… and I want people to appreciate the cost of war and realize that we should do everything we can to preserve the peace. To do that sometimes requires demonstrating to the world that we are prepared for war.”
The ceremony, Short said, was also a tribute to these two surviving World War II Delaware veterans, 99-year-old John Reichert and 100-year-old George McCarthy!
Reichert, pictured on the left, who served as an aviation machinist flight engineer, is the oldest living crew member of the oldest continuously operating patrol squadron in the Navy. He lives now in Bay Vista.
Reichert says we have to make sure this “doesn’t happen again. We don’t have to go through this mess and lose all these wonderful people.” He credits his long life to his wonderful family, healthy living and eating including the daily oatmeal made for him by his wife!
“I don’t know how God spared me this long way around. I’m very fortunate,” says McCarthy who was a sergeant in the Army Air Corps and now lives with family in Lewes.
Mason Fyock played the trumpet wearing the same Army uniform his great-grandfather wore in World War II. He is an avid World War II Army buff and participates with the coastal artillery re-enactors.
The ceremony also honored the 774 Delawareans who died in World War II with the tolling of the bell as their names were read. About 50 of them are being honored during each year’s memorial service.
The ceremony was followed by a flyover of this actual 1944 B-25 bomber which had been delayed because of the President’s departure.
Here’s video of the speech Gen. Douglas MacArthur delivered on that date in 1945 before the signing of the surrender documents.
