“During World War II, Rhode Island was an armed camp,” Christian McBurney and Brian Wallin argue in a recent book about the state during the war. Bush - all did some of their training in the state. The Navy had a huge presence in Rhode Island during World War II, and three future presidents - John F. Patrick Conley, the state’s historian laureate. “From Westerly to Woonsocket and everywhere in between, Rhode Island was focused on winning what has become known as, in Studs Terkel’s famous words, ‘The Good War.’”Ībout 92,000 Rhode Island residents served in the war – more than one in ten – and almost 2,200 of them were killed, according to Dr. “If ever a state was at the center of the American war effort in World War II, it was Rhode Island,” Scott MacKay wrote in a 2010 RIPR essay. (credit: Cranston Public Library)įor Rhode Island, the rationale may have seemed obvious considering how much the war had affected the state.
14, 1948, notes the first annual Victory Day. 14 deserves special attention for its interplay of state, local, national, and even international politics.”Īn article in the Cranston Herald edition of Aug. Senate report on the topic.)Īs far back as the 1950s, The New York Times wrote that Victory Day – which the paper, like many news outlets then and now, referred to as “V-J Day” – was “always a big legal holiday in Rhode Island.” In the “Encyclopedia of American Holidays and National Days,” author Len Travers remarks, “The tenacity of Rhode Island in celebrating Aug. (While some websites claim Victory Day used to be a federal holiday, too, that appears to be a myth – there is no evidence for it in an authoritative 1999 U.S. Rhode Island has apparently been on its own since the late 1960s or ’70s, when Arkansas dropped its version of Victory Day - known there as “World War II Memorial Day” - and reportedly gave state workers their birthdays off as a consolation. It has always been called “Victory Day” on the statute books, going back to its establishment in 1948. 14, when Japan’s surrender was announced here, the holiday is now observed on the second Monday in August.Īnd no, despite what many residents believe, the legal name of Rhode Island’s holiday was never “V-J Day” (short for “Victory Over Japan”). While the actual event it commemorates happened on Aug.
Monday is Rhode Island’s 71st annual Victory Day, continuing the state’s custom of being the only one that observes a legal holiday to mark the end of World War II. (WPRI) – Like Del’s Lemonade or Saugy dogs, Victory Day is a unique summertime tradition in the Ocean State.
0 kommentar(er)
