LI vets recall celebrating end of World War II

When the crew of the USS Chester saw the sky aglow as the Navy cruiser neared the Aleutian Islands on Aug. 14, 1945, James McLaughlin and his shipmates feared the U.S. base at Adak was being attacked.

"We were pulling in and all of a sudden we see the skies light up like a Christmas tree," said McLaughlin, 87, formerly of Seaford, then a 22-year-old boatswain 2nd class on the Chester serving in the Pacific Theater.

But the base wasn't being bombarded or shelled. Jubilant U.S. soldiers at the base were shooting flares into the air. Then, moments later, the Chester captain announced to the crew the news they had waited nearly four years to hear: Japan had surrendered.

World War II was over.

Sailors on the Chester, which had chased the Japanese fleet across the Pacific for more than three years, cheered. "We were yelling and screaming," McLaughlin said.

Saturday marks the 65th anniversary of V-J Day - the day President Harry Truman announced to a war-weary nation that hostilities had come to an end. Three weeks later, Japan formally surrendered in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2 aboard the USS Missouri.

McLaughlin said the end of the war meant he would not have to be part of a planned invasion of Japan, a mission Chester's crew was being prepared for before atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki hastened Japan's surrender.

"You felt good" when the war ended, he said. "You felt like you didn't have to worry about shells coming after you."

McLaughlin had seen enough of war. The Chester sustained major damage in several battles and each time the ship was repaired and returned to service. Five of his friends on the Chester died when the ship was struck at the battle for Guadalcanal.

"It was night time and it was dark, and all of a sudden I felt myself up in the air," said McLaughlin, recalling the attack. He was not injured.

For McLaughlin and another Long Island veteran, Joseph Vecchiarelli, 93, who both live at the Bristal Assisted Living Community in East Meadow, the end of the war brought a mixture of exultation and relief.

"We were just glad it was over," said Vecchiarelli, a pilot with the Army Air Forces. "You were glad you weren't going to do any more fighting."

Vecchiarelli, formerly of Roslyn, retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 1961 and became a math teacher at Jericho High School.

Early in the war, he served on an Allied base in India, where he flew supplies to troops in China and Burma. At war's end, he was a transport pilot at a base in Memphis, Tenn.

"Everybody in the military was helping the effort at that time," Vecchiarelli said. "You couldn't say if you weren't shooting, you weren't helping."

Victory in the Pacific came at a terrible cost: More than 100,000 American troops died and almost 250,000 were wounded. About 2 million Japanese troops and civilians died. Millions more from other combatant nations were killed in the Pacific. Total World War II dead has been estimated at 50 million to 70 million.