From my book about my fathers ship in WW II:
On the 6th of August, 1945, Ensign Hartung reported to me that he had heard a news broadcast over the wardroom short wave radio saying that a new powerful bomb had been exploded over the Japanese city of Hiroshima and that President Truman had issued an ultimatum to the Japanese to surrender or experience “a rain of destruction such as the world has never known.” Ensign Hartung literally lived by the wardroom radio during the next few days and kept me advised of the bombing of Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender.
On the day of the surrender I ordered that two cans of beer per man be served in the mess hall and opened a bottle of medicinal whiskey in the wardroom to drink a toast to victory. Normally the beer was kept under lock and key and taken ashore for picnics on atolls. Drinking on board ship was forbidden by Navy regulations, but I felt that the occasion warranted bending the rules. From the crew perspective the end was a bit more enthusiastically received.
Carlson recalls:
“THE WAR WAS OVER!
Terry McGarty, a fire control man and myself were sitting together on deck when we heard the news and both of us cried like babies. So what, we, before long, would be with our loved ones. We had been planning to invade the islands of the Japanese because we had now became a part of the 12th Fleet.
Before that we had always been with the 7th Amphibious Fleet under Admiral Kincaid. We had been issued all sorts of cold weather gear to travel to Alaska on our way to invade Japan.
Unlike the Iran war, Truman acted on his threat. The end was not only in sight but achieved.
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