Why Is Rhode Island The Only State That Commemorates V-J Day?

V-J Day, August 14, 1945, is the day the Japanese surrendered, ending World War II. Despite its significance, the holiday is only commemorated by one state: Rhode Island. To discuss why the state still commemorates Victory Day, Arun Rath was joined on All Things Considered by Ted Nesi, political and business editor and investigative reporter at WPRI television in Providence.

Arun Rath: So tell us, why is it just Rhode Island? Is history more alive in Rhode Island for some reason?

Ted Nesi: I think any time you have a quirky or unusual observance in any state, it's always a mix of history and happenstance. Fundamentally, World War II was a very big deal in Rhode Island, as it was everywhere. But if you think of what a small state Rhode Island is — about one in 10 of Rhode Islanders in the 1940s served in the war. There were multiple future U.S. presidents trained at the bases around Rhode Island for the Navy. And the manufacturing industry in Rhode Island really went into overdrive building ships and equipment and material and everything. It was a big deal.

And then, of course, the fact that it [the holiday] was created, which happened in 1948 — I think at the time the state lawmakers thought there would be more states creating similar observances to mark the end of World War II. But the only other states that actually did was Arkansas, and they got rid of it in the 1970s. I do think there's always been a lot of pushback at the idea of getting rid of it from World War II veterans, from traditionalists. And then some people a little more cynically say, “hey, who doesn't want a day off in August?”

Rath: It's interesting hearing that because, I was talking about England, and that's a place where the smallest town has lost people in the war. It sounds like a similar thing in Rhode Island, having to do with the size and the geography.

Nesi: I also think, like a lot of things in American politics and government, some of it is just dependence. The holiday was created in 1948. And so therefore, unless someone can actually get an act of the legislature passed to get rid of it, it stays in place. And it certainly has been controversial at different times. The Providence Journal, the biggest paper around, editorialized against creating Victory Day in the forties, saying the state shouldn't have another holiday.

A different criticism of victory that you started to hear in the 1980s was: It's always been named Victory Day on the statute books. But as you said earlier, it commemorates a victory over Japan because Japan surrendered. Germany had already surrendered. And so for many years, colloquially, people in around would call it “V-J” and over time, as American relations with Japan improved in the postwar era, Japanese Americans, as well as people from Japan [began] to say, why is Rhode Island celebrating a holiday that they beat us and, by the way, beat us using atomic nuclear weapons that caused huge destruction? And so there was pushback from activists in Rhode Island who said, “hey, we shouldn't be celebrating the dropping of the atomic bombs.” And it was pushback to the pushback from veterans saying “it's not celebrating the atomic bombs, it's celebrating the sacrifices of everyone who served in both theaters of World War II.” And that's kind of the stalemate, which has kept the holiday in place for now, 70 plus years.

Rath: On that point regarding Japan, does Rhode Island or anywhere else celebrate V-E Day, the surrender of Germany?

Nesi: No. And that's one of the things that they have always been complaints about from Japanese Americans, as well as people sympathetic to the argument that there is a holiday that coincides solely with the victory over Japan in World War II and nothing in May when victory over Germany was won. The other side of the coin is you have people who support keeping Victory Day in remembrance saying, well, you know, it's that's more about how the war ended than anything else. If Germany had held on a little longer and Japan had surrendered first, Victory Day would coincide with V-E day.

But this was a good example this year of the tension there, because it's now always observed on the second Monday in August. This year that actually coincided with the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Because of how the war ended and the misgivings people will always have about the atomic bomb, whether it was the right decision or not, I think there's always a bit of tension there around it. But then there's a lot of people who say, “look, we're glad we won World War II and that's OK to celebrate.”

Rath: I remember about 10 years ago, I met a man who served on the U.S.S. Missouri, that was sailed into to the harbor where the surrender articles were signed. My son was five-years-old and I said, “you need to know about this person.” But I'm thinking about how that generation — we have lost most of them now. Is there is there a push still for keeping this this alive so we don't lose track of history?

Nesi: I think that’s part of it, yes. I think even the feeling toward Victory Day has changed yet again. And, obviously that generation is passing from the scene. We are now as far from the end of World War Two as Pearl Harbor was from the end of the Civil War. It's getting very far back in history.

I think that also makes it more poignant when some veterans still can come [to commemorations]. There was amazing fellow, 98 years old, named Leo Beland. He came this past Monday to the Victory Day commemoration in Pawtucket. He served in France, landed on Omaha Beach. He was gravely wounded, taken to the hospital. He was a prisoner of war. He told the whole story to us on camera, still completely vivid in his recollections. It struck our newsroom in a different way, knowing how few men and women are left to tell those stories. And he was right back in France as he spoke about it. It won't be too many more years before we won't be able to hear stories like that directly from the participants in the war.