The Day the War Ended-- Part 4: Different From Our Era of Long Wars

Arthur Sears Henning, the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau chief wrote the banner headline, "THE GREAT WAR ENDS!"

His paragraph said simply: "The war is over."

"The Japanese empire," he continued, "fell before the military and industrial might of the United States, climaxed last week by the projection of two atomic bombs-- America's terrible, new secret weapon-- upon two Japanese cities with devastating effect."

Further, he said, "the victory came "Three years eight months and seven days after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.  In this day and age of wars that seem to go on forever, this is a really short time.  All of World War II took place between Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939 and this day.  Our war on terrorism is still going strong nearly 14 years after 9/11.

--GreGen