Great War Ends!-- Part 5: V-J Day Celebrated in the Loop and Chinatown

On Guam, Sgt. Francis Hoban of Chicago had fought in several island campaigns and told a Tribune correspondent, "I'd rather have been in the Loop when peace came but any place is a good place to hear the Japs admit they are whipped."

V-E day had been marked solemnly by Chicagoans aware that the fight would shift to the Pacific.  For V-J Day, the joy was unshackled.  Enormous crowds flocked to the Loop and celebrated with abandon.

In Chicago's Chinatown, fireworks and a ceremonial dragon dance marked China's liberation from a long and brutal occupation.  The Tribune reported:  "The firecracker stockpile was brought from China before the Japanese invasion and stored against the day of victory."

In Paris, Corporal Robert MacKinnon told a Tribune reporter that he hated to miss the Chicago celebration.  "At home, I'd have taken my fiancee to Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street where there would surely have been a crowd throwing confetti," he said.  "There's have been hugging and kissing and yelling too.  Anyway we're all thinking hard about home today."

A Time to Celebrate.  --GreGen