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 'Joyous chaos'
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Shirley Carter and her husband, Ed Carter, both of Diamond Head, reminisce about how they felt on the day the war was over.
Rebecca Breyer | The Honolulu Advertiser
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Ed Carter and his new bride, Shirley, were resting in a hotel room in Providence, R.I., when the war ended. They listened to a radio announcement and could scarcely believe it.
Outside, the party started.
"It was joyous chaos," Ed Carter recalled. "I really don't know how to describe it."
A 19-year-old ensign from Los Angeles who joined the Navy right after high school graduation, Carter was on his way to his first real assignment when the Japanese surrendered.
Carter and his wife of 12 days knew he would have been shipped off to join U.S. forces for an invasion of Japan — a mission that would have cost countless American lives.
Carter, now 79 and a long-time Honolulu resident, said he had mixed feelings on V-J Day.
"There was a sense of joy that the war was over and the killing had stopped," he said. "In a way, there was a sense of a little bit of disappointment that I did not get there sooner. But the main reaction was like everyone else. A feeling of relief that the war was over and the world could settle down a bit."
Shirley Carter remembered exactly how she felt that warm day in August 1945.
"My new husband wasn't going to be involved in the war at that point," she said. "The end of the war meant that he would still be in the service, but he wouldn't be in harm's way. That's the best way to describe it."
The Carters celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last month in San Rafael, Calif. Thirty family members, including all five of their children and their two great-grandchildren, attended the festivities.
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