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"Preparing to shoot pool at the Millard VFW, the old man could picture himself as a teenager on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, not far from Gen. Douglas MacArthur.“I was as close to him as the front door over there,” said Bob McGranaghan, 89. “What’s that, 40 feet?”
On Sept. 2, 1945, he was a Navy enlistee on the destroyer USS Nicholas, assigned to escort a Soviet dignitary onto the battleship Missouri for the signing of documents that formally ended war in the Pacific theater, and with it, World War II.
The name of the Soviet general?“I have it right here,” Bob said, scrolling his old ship’s website on his iPad. “Here it is: Derevyanko. I didn’t speak Russian and he apparently didn’t speak English.”
Lt. Gen. Kuzma Derevyanko, a Russian Army chief of staff, was the official signer for the Soviet Union. McGranaghan had stayed with him from the moment they met on the Nicholas until they boarded the Missouri, stepping away when the Russian joined other signers.
Forty feet and 70 years removed from MacArthur on the historic day, ol’ Bob speaks with a clear memory of the 9 a.m. ceremony. He recalls the gray skies and the top hats and formal attire of the Japanese, contrasting with the open-neck shirt and khaki uniform worn by MacArthur, the supreme Allied commander in the Pacific.
After representatives of several countries had signed, the Omahan recalls, MacArthur had no time for small talk. Nearly four years had passed since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor."
"Preparing to shoot pool at the Millard VFW, the old man could picture himself as a teenager on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, not far from Gen. Douglas MacArthur.“I was as close to him as the front door over there,” said Bob McGranaghan, 89. “What’s that, 40 feet?”
On Sept. 2, 1945, he was a Navy enlistee on the destroyer USS Nicholas, assigned to escort a Soviet dignitary onto the battleship Missouri for the signing of documents that formally ended war in the Pacific theater, and with it, World War II.
The name of the Soviet general?“I have it right here,” Bob said, scrolling his old ship’s website on his iPad. “Here it is: Derevyanko. I didn’t speak Russian and he apparently didn’t speak English.”
Lt. Gen. Kuzma Derevyanko, a Russian Army chief of staff, was the official signer for the Soviet Union. McGranaghan had stayed with him from the moment they met on the Nicholas until they boarded the Missouri, stepping away when the Russian joined other signers.
Forty feet and 70 years removed from MacArthur on the historic day, ol’ Bob speaks with a clear memory of the 9 a.m. ceremony. He recalls the gray skies and the top hats and formal attire of the Japanese, contrasting with the open-neck shirt and khaki uniform worn by MacArthur, the supreme Allied commander in the Pacific.
After representatives of several countries had signed, the Omahan recalls, MacArthur had no time for small talk. Nearly four years had passed since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor."