– May 11, 1945 – News Of The World – NBC Radio – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
While Europe continued to celebrate, surrender and face the future, Japan was the object of intensifying B-29 Raids over Tokyo. Russians were still meeting resistance around Czechoslovakia and stories of encounters by Allies as news of VE Day spread. Many small villages and hamlets throughout the rural areas of France were still very much in the dark as to the outcome of the war. Communication was not instant, and news traveled slowly.
Sometimes it took comic turns, such as the story of a reporter and information officer landing on a small airstrip in a remote village near the French coast, being greeted by an official looking German officer and several lieutenants who assumed the reporter was part of an allied surrender team and immediately offered 27,000 German troops and the contents of their garrison in surrender.
News was similar throughout many parts of France as word of the official VE-Day became apparent. France, as well as Germany were coming to terms with an Allied victory and news that General Eisenhower was appointed to head up the Military Government in Germany as the transition to peace was taking place.
The Pacific was another story, as Raids over Tokyo and other Japanese cities by B-29 Superfortress Strategic Bombers intensified, reducing cities to smoldering ruins as fire. The initial raids began on March 10th as 334 B-29s took off to raid with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. The bombs were mostly the 500-pound (230 kg) E-46 cluster bomb which released 38 napalm-carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of 2,000–2,500 ft (610–760 m). The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on the ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs. A lesser number of M-47 incendiaries were also dropped: the M-47 was a 100-pound (45 kg) jelled-gasoline and white phosphorus bomb which ignited upon impact. Approximately 15.8 square miles (4,090 ha) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died. A grand total of 282 of the 339 B-29s launched for “Meetinghouse” made it to the target, 27 of which were lost due to being shot down by Japanese air defenses, mechanical failure, or being caught in updrafts caused by the fires.
So while B-29 raids continued over japan without letup, the process of peace was slowly taking shape in Europe. And that’s just a little of what happened, this May 11, 1945 as reported by NBC Radio.
