Sept. 2nd 1945

Thanks for sharing this.

This is a little souvenir of the day. An envelope postmarked USS Missouri, 2 Sept 1945. This envelope contains a letter from my father, then serving as assistant ops officer for TF-38 to my mother. Some of the contents:

“Friday 32 August 1945

“T’won’t be much of air ops tonight in view of the opposition.

“Seems we have 10 people in here (NB referring to the flag offices area) tonight involved in a sort of farewell blast for Capt Jimmy and Graf who go home tomorrow. Also Charlie Sisson. We are killing off odds and ends of canned chow, and other items of boodle that have been received. Time is not 2330 and no sign of let up.

“Adm. McCain had us all assembled this afternoon and said goodbye to everyone. He is really a prince. He gave out a few medals for recent accomplishments. I was very much bowled over to get the Legion of Merit. Mighty handsome gaud. Made me feel very proud and good. . . .”

“Saturday 1 Sept.

“This is in post haste. Jim Thach has offered to mail this tomorrow in Tokyo. He and the Admiral(s) are going to attend the ceremony. The special cachet is supposed to be quite valuable so that’s why I am making a hash of this letter just to get a stamp on the outside. There is not much time to finish this off, so I’ll just be stopping short.”

The Capt Jimmy and Jim Thach referred to in the letter are one in the same, then Captain John S “Jimmy” Thach, as in “Thach Weave”. Thach was McCain’s operations officer in TF-38; my father was Thach’s assistant. This tour was the second time my father had been Thach’s number 2; way back, three years before, in June 1942, my father was executive officer under Thach in VF-3 at the Battle of Midway.

I have some flimsies of end of war radio traffic if anyone wants to see them.

Rich