V-E Day in Chicago-- Part 10: "Where Is the Joy, the Ecstasy We Visioned?"

But, even with all the relief over the end of the fighting in Europe, there still loomed Japan and even though American victory by now was fairly-well guaranteed, bit at what cost?  Most figured it would be high as the Japanese were preparing to fight to the last person.  However, no one knew about the secret weapon that the United States had developed that ended the war in the Pacific just three months later.

A reader captured the nation's sentiment in the Tribune's popular "In the Wake of the News" column.  First he asked, "Today the headlines read as we long visioned ... but what is the strange something that is missing?  What is the heaviness that still remains, where is the joy, the ecstasy we visioned?"

And, he gave the answer:  "it is that thru each mind flickers ...  White crosses in those far off lonely islands, gleaming in the moonlight, row on row."

And, of course, there were all those white crosses in Europe as well.

--GreGen