Editor’s note: Part of a series detailing the information local newspaper readers received during the last 11 days of World War II about the events home and abroad during those pivotal days 75 years ago.
The War
President Truman, getting no answer to the U.S. demands for Japan to surrender, ordered the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a port city of 250,000 residents.
“Nagasaki Believed Blown Off Map by Atomic Bomb” was the headline in the Pomona Progress-Bulletin. Radio stations in Japan, discussing the first atomic bomb, said “practically every living thing” in Hiroshima had been annihilated, reported the Associated Press. Meanwhile, Russia formally got involved in the fight as a reported 1 million troops surged into Japanese-held Manchuria, closing the ever-tightening ring around Japan.
Back home
While the war seemed on the brink of ending, the ever-present military draft continued to conscript local men.
In San Bernardino, 35 new draftees were sworn in, with six going to the Navy and the remainder for the Army, wrote the Sun newspaper in San Bernardino.
Former Upland City Councilman Richard A. Ibanez was assigned to officer candidate school. He will move from Camp Robinson, Arkansas, to University of Michigan for a 17-week course in military law as part of the judge advocate general’s candidate school, said the Pomona Progress-Bulletin.
Aug. 4, 1945 | Aug. 5, 1945 | Aug. 6, 1945 | Aug. 7, 1945 | Aug. 8, 1945
An Army transport ship at Los Angeles Harbor unloaded nearly 500 Army and Navy wounded men and other troops from the Pacific theater who were taken to Riverside-area reception bases. The wounded patients went to the debarkation hospital at Camp Haan, the site of today’s Riverside National Cemetery, while Army troops were taken to Camp Anza, in the Arlanza area of Riverside, for processing and release on furlough or discharge, said the Corona Independent.
Meanwhile, at Heart Mountain relocation camp near Cody, Wyoming — where some of the Japanese-Americans originally imprisoned at the Pomona Fairgrounds in early 1942 were still housed — two wounded soldiers on furlough visited their family members incarcerated there. Cpl. Joe Onchi had been wounded by a sniper in Italy, while Pfc. Sam Aoyama was recovering from being shot in the chest in southern Germany. All the Japanese-Americans were released from Heart Mountain by summer’s end.
In San Bernardino, the Harris Company offered to make a free permanent plastic wallet card of any soldier’s discharge certificate, something each needed to get benefits in the future. It also paid for an advertisement recruiting 17-year-olds for the Marine Corps, “the Fightin-est Force of All.” It said “Travel, Education, Adventure are Yours in the United States Marines!”
The family of Pfc. Ralph H. Higby of Ontario, who was killed in France in February, received letters of consolation from their son’s company commander and chaplain. The letters printed in the Ontario Daily Report detailed his heroism in leading his company in a battle just after it crossed into Germany. Higby was buried at a cemetery at Foy, Belgium.
Joe Blackstock writes on Inland Empire history. He can be contacted at joe.blackstock@gmail.com or Twitter @JoeBlackstock
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A look at the last 11 days of World War II: Aug. 9, 1945 - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
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