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 Frisco got freaky
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Ray Emory remembers two naked women jumping into a lily pond near San Francisco's City Hall during the wild, 3-day V-J Day party.
Rebecca Breyer | The Honolulu Advertiser
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Word of the surrender moved swiftly across the San Francisco pier where Ray Emory, a chief boatswain's mate in the Navy, was assigned to work with civilian dockworkers loading cargo.
They were loading an amphibious transport ship destined for the invasion of Japan, but all of a sudden, the stevedores simply stopped working and left.
"They all went home and they started to celebrate," recalled Emory, now an 84-year-old Kahala resident.
Emory had seen the start of the war up close, manning a 50-caliber machine gun as Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The end was quite different.
"You could not believe the celebrating," he said. "People went ape that night."
In anticipation of an invasion, the entire city had been transformed into a giant military camp. The surrender turned loose thousands of soldiers and sailors, Emory said.
"Guys were grabbing girls and taking them into doorways," he said.
Market Street was a packed mob. Near City Hall, two women jumped into a lily pond. "Stark naked," Emory said.
Three days passed before military police shut down the party. They drove up Market Street with a bunch of paddy wagons, grabbing soldiers and sailors and taking them off the street, Emory said.
"You turn that many people loose — it was like a riot, only they didn't riot," Emory said. "They celebrated. "
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