By Thomas W. Butler

By August 1945 our operations shack at FRUPAC, Iowa Jima had grown big enough to hold several inter­cept positions, a D/F Net reporting position, a plotting table, a heater, a couple of tables, a hotplate and a coffee pot. The “head” was an outside privy about 50 yards down the black sand beach.

Just past mid-day on 11 August 1945 one of the off duty radioman was sitting at a position copying English language CW press from Japan. Curiously enough, the Japanese had a foreign press service, in English, even at that late stage of the war. We often copied it, espe­cially during the day watch when things were slow.

We all sensed that the war was winding down. This was the summer of frequent and massive B29 raids on Tokyo and other Japanese cities. And then there were atomic bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August which, incidentally, we all en­dorsed fully.

Anyhow, in the midst of the usual press propaganda about “…brave Japanese troops” and “..repulsed at­tacks”, there was a “flash”. The exact text is lost to me but it went something like …”The divine Emperor has asked that the Diet meet to consider surrender terms, etc…” The Diet, of course, was the Japanese parliament. The person copying the flash put the signal on the speaker. He kept copying as we all listened to the clipped Morse .. clear, sharp, S-5 …as the announcement was re­peated. All in all, the text was only about  20-30 words. We could hardly believe our ears…and our eyes as we read the typed-printed text. Then it was repeated again. The bubble of excitement which had been building ex­ploded in a burst of whoops.

“The war is over! The effing war is over!!” The ex­citement was like a hundred New Year’s Eves rolled into one.

I am sure we did something to advise Oahu Net Control (NIM) of what we had copied. While I cannot recall precisely what we did, I believe we encoded and sent a brief message, being consciously careful not to risk compromising our codes.

In any case, by our parochial reasoning, the war was over. Officially, of course, it wasn’t …but effectively, it pretty much was. We had made it. We were going home. Or, as later generation put it ..”Back to the world”.

A few hours after we intercepted the first flash, the U.S. Armed Forces Radio Station on the island broad­cast excited reports essentially confirming what we had heard. Rejoicing was widespread and enthusiastic, espe­cially by the island’s anti-aircraft batteries. A few unau­thorized rounds were thrown up at the clouds that evening.

It was a great day, the day that FRUPAC-Iwo Jima scooped Armed Forces Radio.