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America, Douglas MacArthur, Elkhart, Elkhart County, Elkhart Indiana, End of WWII with Japan, History, Labor Day, Larry App, Paul Thomas, September 2, Signing of Treaty with Japan, USS Missouri, VJ Day
Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepts Japanese surrender, USS Missouri, Tokyo Bay, September 2, 1945.
What is was like in Elkhart, Indiana
during World War II?
“When World War II ended,” says, Paul D. Thomas, Elkhart, Indiana’s “Official Historian”, “there was more elation and more excitement in Elkhart than over anything that had ever happened before. People poured into the streets. I remember that I had a 1929 Essex. If you can believe that; in 1943, I bought a 1929 Essex. When Victory in Japan Day was announced we cruised up and down Main street and we hollered and we bellowed. And it was just one of the greatest things that ever happened.”
Thomas, owned the former Paul Thomas Shoes, served on the city council and headed the Elkhart Urban Enterprise Association, along with many other civic groups and committees.
Upon retiring,Thomas opened the “Time Was” Museum located at 125-A North Main Street, Elkhart, Indiana.
