On the first bus from the Martin Bomber Plant back to Omaha, Nebraska. "A cheer for victory. V-J Day, August 16, 1945." Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society.

"What a time to be alive! What a glorious time!" —Jeanette Meyer Davis Omaha, NE Army Nurse Corps at 187th General Hospital in England

Nebraskans wholeheartedly celebrated the End of World War II. They looked forward to the return of their loved ones and to a world at peace. In North Platte and all over Nebraska, both V-E (Victory in Europe) and V-J (Victory in Japan) Days were celebrated out on the streets. End of World War II

Streams of cars in front of Regis Hotel, Omaha, Nebraska, V-J Day. Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society.

"V-J Day was totally different for me. We had some tin pie pans which we beat to make noise as we watched people walk down Farnam Street to the downtown district of Omaha. We had been expecting peace because the two atom bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a few days before."
—Frederick Walters, Grade School Student, Omaha, NE

Click here to read some of the articles in the
August 15, 1945 Omaha Morning World Herald.

"Oh, we were so excited. There were people all over the streets, filling the street, and you just wanted to be out."
—Sylvia Iwanski Chalupsky, Ord, NE

"It was summer — August 15 — and the word came about six o'clock in the evening. Everybody went downtown. It was just absolute insanity. The police were powerless. They couldn't do anything; they weren't trying to do anything. Everybody was jolly, jolly . . ."
—Barc Bayley, High School Student, Lincoln, NE

Click here to read some of the articles in the
August 16, 1945 Schuyler Sun.

"You never saw so many hardened, seasoned, old battle veterans crying in your life. They just cried and cried for happiness, knowing that we would be saved from that barbarous, bloody invasion of Japan."
—K. Roy Bailey, Schuyler, NE