SPONTANEOUS REACTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25924, 16 August 1945, Page 6

SPONTANEOUS REACTION

HIGH SPIRITS AND ORDER At 11 o’clock yesterday morning the British Prime Minister, Mr C. R. Attlee, told the world that Japan had surrendered. Everyone knew that the Japanese must capitulate, but the question was “ When? ” The whole country was ready for the news, and when the sirens began their blare at 11.20 a.m. work was dropped as easily as responsibilities slipped from impatient shoulders. It took Dunedin approximately 10 minutes to shed its cares and worries and begin the business of celebration. The tumult and the din that marked the defeat of the last enemy and the possibility of a durable peace had not subsided before the revels began. That it was a beautiful sunny morning may be regarded as a special dispensation of whatever gods determine so indeterminate a quantity as Dunedin weather in the early spring. At mid-day it began. At midnight it was dying hard. The only difference that darkness made was the transfer of some part of public celebration to the privacy of four walls.