V-J Day 1945: Celebrating the End of World War II

Historical Essay

by Kevin Mullen

Intersection of Market and Mason, August 18, 1945.

Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

When news of America’s victory over Japan reached San Francisco on Tuesday, August 14, 1945—90 years to the day after the riot that followed President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination— the city erupted into several days of riotous “celebration.” Over the next two days, 11 people were killed, more than 100 hospitalized and the downtown district of San Francisco was trashed. Rioters rampaged through the streets, unchallenged by any organized response from the police department. On the third day, the police department finally cancelled days off for its members and a joint police/military force was organized to deal with further rioting.

Criticism was swift in coming. “Civil and police authorities,” said one observer, “despite all pious talk . . . about how prepared the city was to handle any situation that developed, proved themselves criminally lacking in foresight and totally unprepared to handle the situation that developed.” District Attorney Edmund “Pat” Brown hurriedly announced a grand jury inquiry to find out what had gone wrong and who was responsible. “The past is the past,” said the deputy police chief, “and if the police have made mistakes the thing to do is admit it.”

But nobody admitted much of anything. In the post-war euphoria, the whole embarrassing matter was quickly forgotten. The grand jury investigation led nowhere, and the police administration returned to its regular routine.

But the V-J day riots were the first of what could be called recreational riots, having no discernible cause other than a general predisposition to raise hell. Nobody much thought about it at the time, least of all police authorities but the disorders of August 1945 augured the emergence of a very different city and a set of events with which the police department o􀄞en found themselves ill-equipped to deal.