End of WWII?

These are personal interview questions, which was what the assignment was, to interview an individual and so they are questions that can’t really be answered here, unless someone on fluther fits the profile. What did you do to try and find someone? Sadly, there won’t be too many people in this age group, people their early to mid eighties, and they are dying by the thousands every day. You tried nursing homes of course? Senior centers, etc.? There must be someone you can talk to because these questions need to be answered by someone “who was a young adult at the end of WWII.” Have you talked to and told your teacher that you are having trouble finding a person to interview?

Check with the American Legion, VA or the VFW. They can probably put you in contact with someone.

If you don’t find someone local, you might try another question here on Fluther. “Do you know any online forums where there are a lot of people 75 to 85 years old?” If you found one, I bet you would get a few great respondents.

Here’s a way you might be able to fulfill the requirements of the assignment.

The Japanese surrender document was signed on the USS Missouri. You can google “USS Missouri” and find a page (somewhere, I know there’s one out there) for a “veterans of” listing. Look up some of the veterans (and their wives, since they will also have been ‘young adults’ of the time) and see if you can find email links to some of them and present your interview questions. You may only receive a single response to scores that you send out, so send as many as you can.

You could also look up ships involved in the Iwo Jima campaign, Okinawa, D-Day and other notable naval engagements. If you know any of the Army and Marine battle groups involved in other campaigns, such as Operation Torch (invasion of North Africa), the Battle of the Bulge, Sicily, Anzio, Guadalcanal and other campaigns, you should be able to find some of the same lists of veterans and surviving family.

I’m sure that Canadian, British, Australian and New Zealand veterans have similar social networks, and since they speak the same language (more or less) you could get an international flavor to your response if you can contact some of them as well.

I would also recommend Jewish Holocaust survivors, who often speak of their own experience to schools and other groups, and who would be very happy to participate, I’m sure.

You may get lucky and find a sympathetic secretary / organizer of one of these groups who can help distribute (and endorse) your questionnaire.

Good luck. Tell your teacher from me that this is an excellent assignment. I hope you put the effort into it that it deserves.

@polycinco try your question, worded exactly like you worded it here, somewhere like this:

http://www.ww2f.com/

My goodness! I didn’t realize I was such a relic! An endangered species? Well, maybe. My age group is dying off. It’s our turn to get the final answers.

I was 15 when WWII ended. I lived in Chicago. Women pitched in to do men’s jobs during the war. After the war, women continued to work. They didn’t go back to just being a housekeepers and mothers as was expected when the men came home.
We didn’t need ration stamps for meat and sugar any more. Skirt lengths for women dropped from knee length to mid calf length. Gasoline was no longer rationed. New car models came out for the first time in about 7 years.

My dad came home from service as a physician in the navy. After being away, he decided he wanted to have a job that would allow him to spend more time with his family, so he became medical director of a large industry. Every man in my family but one served in the military. It was a relief that they all came home whole. High School was high school. We mostly had old ladies (like me) as teachers.

I was expected to go to college and find a career that was suited for girls: nurse, teacher, secretary, home maker. There were perhaps 2 or 3 women in medical classes. Maybe a fifth of a law school students were women. I became an occupational therapist .

Entertainment included: movies (in technicolor or black and white); (in movie houses and drive-ins), going to dances; theater; sports like skiing, ice skating, etc. in winter; parties with and without beer; hay rides; swimming, volley ball and picnics in the summer.
TV was just getting to the midwest when I graduated from college.

If you have follow up questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.

@Sunny2 Yeah! You’re exactly what our OP needs. And no, you’re not a relic. The question is about someone who was a “young adult” at the end of WWII. That kind throws me off too. I tend to do the math in terms of my dad who enlisted in the Navy at 17 in 1942 and died at 82 in 2007 so I sometimes tend to view anyone who was alive around at the time of WWII, anyone who can remember it, as being the same age as my father would be now. Bad math, not relic.

@lilycoyote I didn’t take offense. I tend to be surprised at how old I am chronologically. In my head I’m about 40, I think. Sometimes, younger.

@Sunny2 I hope our young questioner sees that he/she has a perfect interview arranged courtesy of this site and youself.

@bkcunningham Exactly! I hope so too. Isn’t fluther just grand sometimes? :-)

@lillycoyote it certainly fit the bill for what he/she asked. I loved @Sunny2 ‘s concise way of answering the questions in such a nice story form too. Really interesting. I bet she has some good stories to tell about college.

@bkcunningham Yes. Now I want to interview @Sunny2 myself. :-)

So, ask away. Reminiscing is kind of fun.