00:00:01.340 - 00:00:36.110

Yeah, yeah. No. A Cron Channel four Special. Mhm. Mhm. Whether you're a native or a newcomer, you probably have some pretty special feelings about this place. We all call home San Francisco Bay Area. I know I do. And it's not just the natural beauty that

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has us under its spell. This city has a past full of adventure and romance and stories begging to be told. Good evening, everybody. I'm Pam More. Tonight we're going to look back at a decade full of change and excitement. San Francisco in the 19 forties. Mhm.

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Sit back and relax, because we're going to take you on a little trip to a place unlike any other. It's a town where nickel buys you a ride on a cable car and five grand a house with a view. It's a safe and friendly place where

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you grew up with your neighbor. We're talking about a trip through time to the San Francisco of the 19 forties. San Francisco's history is chock full of colorful times, but nothing compares with the 19 forties. They were the years we grew up when we discovered what

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the real world was all about, and when the world discovered us. Millions of people came through here who had never seen the likes of us before. Those newcomers changed our little Shangrila into a big, bustling city. Their tails and those of many others, are the stuff

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of which our story is made. The story of San Francisco in the forties? Yeah. Mhm. Mm. What kind of town? Where? San Francisco. In the forties. Well, from its very beginnings, it had been a wide open town. Father? Yeah, By the 19 thirties. Not

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much change from those early days. Oh, the buildings have gotten taller, but we were still hanging onto our old pioneer ways. We were thousands of miles from a world where change was an epidemic. A world war, a world in the middle of a terrible depression. A

00:03:16.460 - 00:03:47.790

world made small by the coming of the automobiles and the arrow plane. Yeah, yeah. We were confident away from that civilized world. A pioneer town proud of its rough edges. It's exotic, unruly past. It was to this Baghdad by the bay that a certain young greenhorn

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came in 1936. He found a job on one of the city's daily newspapers writing about the low life and high times of the city. He's called home ever since. It was possible to stay up 24 hours a day and I never go without a drink. Was

00:04:04.720 - 00:04:26.180

a wide open town. The Tenderloin was wide open. Anything you wanted was available. Yeah, right Then there was the music box over in O'Farrell Street. But there's not the great American Music Hall. And there, disporting herself, the famous Sally Rand with her fans and her showgirls

00:04:26.450 - 00:04:51.060

and after hours club upstairs called the Blue Room. Uh huh. In those days, Sally Rand wasn't the only Randy Sally in town. Mhm? Uh huh. Sally Stanford, a famous madam Because she was she had a huge house on Russian hill, which was owned by the man

00:04:51.060 - 00:05:09.540

who, who were in the city of Paris, a very proper fellow named Paul Berthier. The very imagine was leased by Madame Stanford and her girls are all very like social out there like junior leaders. They were dusters, and they were feather boas, and they were corsages

00:05:09.540 - 00:05:26.970

in the back to like ladies and was even on the gray line tour For a while, you could drop in if you were on the tour and Meet Sally's Girls. Politics was run pretty much like every other game in town in those days, fast and loose.

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Those were the days when a young lawyer could run for district attorney on a law and order ticket with more than a little creative financing. I can remember running for district attorney, and my uncle gave me $500 for billboards. I mean, if I painted billboards that

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I was going to put up, and I went down to Tom Kinds where they had open gambling and I looked at the odds and I was 5 to 1 short ender and I took the I was so angry at them being a five and I took

00:06:00.060 - 00:06:14.810

the $500 and bet on myself. And if I won, I mean 5 to 1. I would have won $2500 so I walked and I walked down the street. Gee, I haven't got the money for the billboards now. I mean, for these painted boards, so I'll tell

00:06:14.810 - 00:06:27.680

you what to do. I went back and I got I bought 50 $10 tickets and I'd meet you walking along the street and I'd say Here's a $10 ticket. If I win, you get 60 bucks. It was the best thing I ever did. I carried. I

00:06:27.680 - 00:06:52.400

think that really carried the town for me. Gambling parlors, speakeasies, houses of ill repute, all kinds of shady enterprises have flourished in San Francisco, and yet somehow it all seemed harmless. It was never mugged. Never slugged, and it was a different world entirely. It was an

00:06:52.400 - 00:07:27.900

innocent villa and innocent village in a way, and we felt like we were members of a very special club. Mhm, yeah, in that special little club. When people talked about the 40 Niners, they were talking about gold miners, not football players. And those were the

00:07:27.900 - 00:07:46.820

days when kids like Alice, Santa Key and Alan Beale's got their pictures all over Page one of the sports section high school football players. It was for them, not the pros, that San Francisco's first big stadium, Qasar Stadium, was built. You guys, you still was build

00:07:46.820 - 00:08:01.810

a stadium up with that used to have 45 morning in San Francisco for a high school high school game, the low poly game. Everybody went to that. They have a Thanksgiving morning. Morning. It was about 11 o'clock, and it was a place to be seen. You

00:08:01.810 - 00:08:27.630

just went to the alligator. But no matter where you went in those days, you'd probably be seen by somebody who knew because in San Francisco before the war, just like any other small town, everyone knew everyone. Those were the days when a visitor from the east

00:08:27.630 - 00:08:49.460

would have to spend five days and nights on a train to get here. And it wasn't until the mid thirties that you had a better or at least a faster choice. Mhm. Mhm. It may not look like much, but this ungainly bird was a blessing from

00:08:49.470 - 00:09:09.940

heaven for travelers to San Francisco, Japan and China. Clipper cut the trip from the Orient, down from 21 days on the ship to 60 hours of flying time. Mhm, the new DC three's Landing and Mills Field, where SFO is today, meant the same kind of time

00:09:09.940 - 00:09:41.180

savings for domestic travelers. Then, just a couple of years later, the Golden gate was bridged. Yeah, mhm. Marin had always been horse country, the East Bay, a summer community. Now they were just a quick commute away over the brand new Golden Gate and Bay Bridges. Uh

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huh. To celebrate, we threw one hell of a party. So what if New York was already having a world's fair in 1940? We would have one, too. And we build a whole new island to put it on. What else could we call it? But Treasure Island.

00:10:06.140 - 00:10:33.460

Mm. Mm hmm. It was a first class affair. There were 26 foreign pavilions, a full fledged carnival and girls girls girl. It was this a marvelous experience to have been part of the Treasure Island, Sally Rand's nude ranch and all those kind of the Gay way.

00:10:33.460 - 00:10:51.910

And and Billy Rose's Aquacade and the Follies Bourget Air. Remember seeing my first television set, this thing that was hanging on the wall and they said, Everybody will have this in their home and they will get enjoyment out of this and they'll be national broadcast. I

00:10:51.910 - 00:11:13.050

said, Are they kidding? You know, maybe just a wonderful experience for some of us, though, it was a bittersweet time when the gates open for the second year, the fair many of the foreign pavilions had closed. It reminded us that already most of the world was

00:11:13.050 - 00:11:31.900

at war and it was a war that was getting closer and closer to home. We figured every here was the last one in which we have this care for you. Like I said, maybe we were crazier than we needed to be. And when the fair the

00:11:31.900 - 00:11:48.250

last lights on the fare went down in 1940 was a very emotional time. People were standing around sobbing and crying and throwing their arms around each other. These were strangers embracing and And after two years of that bright, wonderful island in the middle of the day,

00:11:48.530 - 00:12:37.510

it was just a black spot. Yeah, Mhm. Yeah, December 7th, 1941 A date which will live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked. It was, as I recall, one of the most beautiful days in the history of this city.

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Warm and warm, December day, clear and like lemmings. Everybody jumped in cars and got together and drove out to Ocean Beach. There are thousands of people standing out there at the beach. Looking toward Pearl Harbor is that we could see anything, but we're just drawing to

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the ocean. We had to go there. And look, you got to realize that they bombed Pearl Harbor. So we thought that there might be battleships coming over here and airplane carriers and all of our our ships were destroyed over there at Pearl Harbor. And we were

00:13:13.750 - 00:13:30.050

afraid the next bombing would be San Francisco or Los Angeles. It was a very frightening period. We weren't mobilized. We weren't ready for the war in any shape, form or manner. By the day after Pearl Harbor, San Francisco was on its feet and ready to fight

00:13:30.540 - 00:13:56.480

guards were posted at the Presidio. Japanese aliens and leaders in the Japanese American community were rounded up and put in jail. That night, the city had its first black out. Street lights were turned off. Headlines were dim. Windows were boarded up. Everyone who could was joining

00:13:56.480 - 00:14:15.540

up, getting into uniform. For most young recruits. It didn't even matter which uniform. I went up in the Air Force. It was rejected by the Marines for bad eyes by the Navy for a uneven heartbeat. And that's something I never knew I had. But the Air

00:14:15.540 - 00:14:56.310

Force thought I was terrific, Remember? Mm mm. Yeah. Mhm. Mm. anyone who couldn't find a way in a uniform found a way to serve at home. There was plenty to be done. The military was installing artillery in bunkers up and down the coast and stringing

00:14:56.310 - 00:15:13.380

up a net under the Golden Gate Bridge to keep enemy submarines out of the bay. On top of all that, every civilian with a pair of binoculars was enlisted as an official lookout. Others meant a big board in the basement of the Pacific Stock Exchange, taking

00:15:13.390 - 00:15:39.740

calls from the ever vigilant lookouts. Scott Newhall, 1/4 generation San Franciscan and an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, did his part by joining the Coast Guard Temporary reserve afloat. Flotilla number 11. San Francisco had to be protected to catch submarines if they were to come

00:15:39.740 - 00:15:55.170

in through the net or something. And so we went out in these little little wooden boats, you know, sort of yachts and everybody in town, young and old, who couldn't get into any other service. They would get into that. It ended up these poor fellows out

00:15:55.170 - 00:16:10.640

there in auxiliary flotilla 11 go out all day long. All night long. Their whole energy was spent trying to keep their patrol boats out of the submarine net. And I kid you not. I don't know what would have happened if the submarine came. It would have

00:16:10.640 - 00:16:42.470

been in terrible shape. Uh huh. Yeah. If spending all night on the bay looking for enemy subs wasn't your cup of tea, you could sell war bonds or buy them. You could join the American Red Cross. You could salvage tin cans and other Memphis. Mm mhm.

00:16:43.040 - 00:16:59.810

You could save your cooking oil and sell it back to your butcher for four cents a pound to be used in packing ammunition. But no matter what else you did, you were given a limited rations of butter, meat, sugar, shoes and gasoline. All the things that

00:16:59.810 - 00:17:16.270

kept the army on its feet. And those weren't the only the items to disappear off store shelves with the coming of the war. Remember some of the people who were married because brides over there were brides all over the place because everybody, the young people that

00:17:16.280 - 00:17:32.850

were in love and wanted to be married, they had quick weddings, and they would like to give them China. Where you, uh in a minute. It seemed to me the factories weren't doing anything but putting out this terrible, white, heavy china where you couldn't get the

00:17:32.850 - 00:17:52.550

pretty china that we were used to from her windows overlooking the bay. Anna Logan Upton had a front row seat on the war as she watched hundreds of thousands of men and women shipped out to the front from the embarkation point at Fort Mason. They came

00:17:52.550 - 00:18:09.830

here from all over the country. Kenneth Mole for was a logger in the woods of Oregon when he was drafted and told he was headed for New Caledonia via San Francisco. Well, you think embarking 1000 men would be a It wasn't noisy at all. It was

00:18:09.840 - 00:18:26.320

a matter of fact. They were quiet, and we didn't realize what quiet was when we went out under the gate and that chipped in with absolutely still, because we're going for the duration plus six months. Yeah. For many of the men on board, the Golden Gate

00:18:26.330 - 00:18:46.120

would be the last sight of home for the lucky ones who survived the voyage and the war. It would be like a beacon in the night. Yeah, Ed Fisher was a scrappy kid from the north side of Chicago when he came through here in 1941. Well,

00:18:46.220 - 00:19:13.280

you know, anyone looking at San Francisco would always want to come back to San Francisco. Uh, to me was a oh, a pain. And you have to realize what San Francisco was isn't that you didn't have these high rises? You you could get up and see

00:19:13.380 - 00:19:58.180

the B from any any place in San Francisco, San Francisco was the closest thing. It's a Shangri La that I ever saw. Mhm. So I always said I one of these days, I'll come back and I get back Mhm, Yeah, To

00:19:58.180 - 00:20:29.930

win the war, America needed ships and she needed them fast. Yeah, mhm. In shipyards like Henry Kaiser's in Richmond, tens of thousands of welders, chippers and riveters worked around the clock seven days a week, turning out Liberty ships, ships that could carry 1400 men across the

00:20:29.940 - 00:21:10.540

Pacific and back home again, ships that weighed 10 tons of peace in three years. Kaiser's plant alone would produce more than 500 liberty ships. His plant would also hold the time record for building a single ship in just under five days. mhm. Mm, yeah. Mhm. Yeah.

00:21:12.840 - 00:21:26.980

Mhm. Find your brother was just marched down through here, and then the big this big ship will be here where we launch a Fanboy and all these big wheels would be out here, the grass and the bands and the stuff, and then they would launch the

00:21:26.980 - 00:21:52.110

ship. We go on deck, they have this thing to walk us out to the ship. Then the ship will leave from here, and we would all be up and down this bank, just yelling and waving. It was really beautiful. Mhm. Okay. Henry Kaiser made a fortune

00:21:52.110 - 00:22:13.890

here, but he couldn't have done it without Precious Max and tens of thousands of other unskilled laborers like her who came here from the South and Midwest. Yeah. Mm. Mhm. Come on, boys. Let's leave this load downtown. Gotta cut out. I gotta cut out now. Come

00:22:13.890 - 00:22:36.310

on, boys. Let's leave this load downtown. I gotta cut out. I gotta cut out. Let's go to California, where I pulled back and hang around. There was posters all over the place saying shipyard workers needed They was taking them away by the train loads, bringing them

00:22:36.310 - 00:23:06.300

into California. That's what they was telling the people there that we have better jobs, better opportunities in California. That's what we thought. Opportunities. This is the golden opportunity to do better. They came here with dreams of the land of milk and honey. The reality was something

00:23:06.300 - 00:23:28.300

else again. Precious Mac was 19 when she arrived in Richmond from rural Louisiana with her parents, her 11 brothers and sisters and her own baby daughter. She had always imagined a California filled with orange trees and sunshine. There was no there wasn't nothing like that. Nothing

00:23:28.300 - 00:23:50.560

like that. Rain, thunder, mud. Oh, nothing. We lived in a little donkey trailer, fifth and grow. There was a trailer court there, and it was muddy. There wasn't concrete it around under it or anything. There was all then all of us come out and we lived

00:23:50.560 - 00:24:28.520

in this little one bedroom trailer. No compare. Nothing like back home. Just terrible. Mm. Before the war, only 2% of the Bay Area's 1.5 million residents were black. Suddenly, 200,000 blacks were squeezed into the neighborhoods were only 1/10. That number had lived

00:24:28.520 - 00:24:51.850

a few months before, Mm worth of the shipyards was no laughing matter either. It was grueling. The weather was cold and damp. And many of the workers were women who had never worked outside their homes. Before. The job that I had, I was a welder and

00:24:51.850 - 00:25:07.780

it was terrible because it was hard for a woman. It really shouldn't have been for a woman. It was really hard. We had these big holes that we were dragged from here across the street. Big black holes. But seem that everybody, if your hose was tangled

00:25:07.780 - 00:25:26.900

up, someone would try and give you a helping hand. And then are you just pulling your goods falling down over your face and you push it back up there? You can get to where you're going to do. It was terrible. Mhm, mhm. Despite it all these

00:25:26.900 - 00:25:43.790

were good times for most of the workers here. Wages were excellent and spirits were high. We were like one person. We end this together. We've got to win this fall. The boys is going away to fight. They are not here to do it. We're here to

00:25:43.800 - 00:26:10.260

do it. Oh, young, one leg, one on whoever they were there they will work. We were just like I say. One big family. I had people, friends. No brothers went to service. I had friends that was in service. I wanted them to come home. And all

00:26:10.260 - 00:26:35.360

I felt inside was this will bring them home. This will help them win the war. That's what we felt. This will bring our boys home. This is our motto to get our boys by our men. Folks back home? Yeah. Mhm. Mm. The Americans whose war years

00:26:35.360 - 00:27:20.250

were wasted after this brief pause. Yeah, yeah. Mm. It's still one of the most beautiful spots in San Francisco. The place we like to show off to visitors. The Japanese Tea garden in Golden Gate Park Fair. Mhm. Yeah, yeah, But to many San

00:27:20.250 - 00:27:41.440

Franciscans, this place is a reminder of the dark side of World War Two. The sign that revealed the worst of our prejudices. This tea garden was designed in 18 94 by an Australian, but it was tended by a young Japanese cars. Makoto Hagiwara. He treated the

00:27:41.440 - 00:28:01.450

garden like one of his own Children. And in large measure, it was his creation. Even lived here with his family in a small apartment above the gift jump. That fine tradition ended 1 April day in 1942 when notices like this one were posted all over the

00:28:01.450 - 00:28:33.770

city. Old persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non alien, will be evacuated from above the area by 12 o'clock noon, six days hands. Uh huh. Yeah. Altogether 120,000 Japanese aliens and American citizens with Japanese faces were removed from their homes in California, Oregon and Washington.

00:28:34.940 - 00:29:13.650

18 0 were from the Bay Area. Dave Tatsu. No, I just started taking home movies when the evacuation order came. Yeah, Natsuno managed to smuggle his camera and film into the internment camp at Topaz, Utah, where he and his family were eventually taken one of 10

00:29:13.650 - 00:29:35.610

such clubs scattered all over the West. It was as desolate place as you can imagine. Mhm. In order to construct all these barracks, these camps, they had to grade it, and that topaz dust was all over the place. And I still remember it felt like going

00:29:35.610 - 00:30:06.860

into, uh, an area with face powder flying around all over. It was really dusty. We have to stay cooped up in that barracks, But all the windows closed tight and yet the dust would still come through and just do in that. Barrett Yeah, camp officials tried

00:30:06.860 - 00:30:27.040

to create a semblance of ordinary life. Children went to school. Adults. All had jobs. Young men here even joined the army. They fought in Italy and Germany in the four 42nd, the most decorated unit in American military history. On leave, these courageous Americans visited their mothers

00:30:27.040 - 00:30:54.660

and wives and Children like any soldiers, but they visited them behind barbed wires. I don't know. It seems incredible today, but most of the internees endured insult on top of injury without protest or complaint. But a few, like Morgan Yamanaka, refused to take a loyalty oath

00:30:54.800 - 00:31:16.960

and renounced their citizenship. As I talked with my some of my guy friends from for 40 seconds, they're proud of those four years having served the government, their country. I can't say I'm part of those four years. I'm ashamed for my own country doing that to

00:31:16.960 - 00:31:36.580

me, and I'm ashamed for myself, so to say, for those four years wasted, are you an actor? The only thing I think was the feeling of that America had turned its back on us. It was a psychological feeling not more than the physical feeling. I think

00:31:36.580 - 00:31:58.670

it was a psychological feeling of feeling that America had after we had spent all the years Uhh! In trying to be good citizens. Uh, suddenly because of our Japanese ancestry because of our Japanese pieces were put into camp. Whereas the Germans and Italians were not Uhh.

00:32:00.440 - 00:32:46.110

Essentially five years was lost and it was lost in the most meaningless where, Yeah. Mm. Yeah, right. By mid war are San Francisco wasn't a little town any longer, but some things hadn't changed. It was still a city of

00:32:46.110 - 00:33:09.300

romance and passion and a city made for the movies. You know, it's wonderful when guys like you lose out makes guys like me think maybe we got a chance in this world. Don't count me out So easy The city as a backdrop. Humphrey Bogart starred in

00:33:09.310 - 00:33:29.710

Dark Passage in the forties, and he made his debut as a leading man here in 1941 in the Maltese Falcon. Yes, sweetheart. There's a girl wants to see you. Her name is one thing. Bogey fell in love with the city. He came here whenever I heard

00:33:29.720 - 00:34:03.460

with his young bride, Lauren Bacall sailing the bay on his pride and joy. The Santana mm mhm Mm Bogey wasn't the only Star court in the city's Web. But for most of them, San Francisco's charm lay far from the quiet waters of the

00:34:03.470 - 00:34:28.490

bay. Yeah, so he was full of people from Hollywood every weekend who came up on a train athlete called The Lark. And they come up on Friday night and I'd see them all over town. You know, Walter Pidgeon, Lana Turner, Dorothy Lamour. Heady Lamar. All these

00:34:28.490 - 00:34:57.900

famous people would be out nightclubbing because L. A Los Angeles really had no nightclubs and very few restaurants. So they all love San Francisco being as patriotic as everyone else. The stars make a point of dropping by Fort Mason to visit the troops. Or they'd stopped

00:34:57.910 - 00:35:17.010

by the States for a canteen, a night club run by local volunteers. We tried to keep things as normal as possible, and for the young men coming in and going right out. We had the stage door canteen and they that was a great thing. And the

00:35:17.020 - 00:35:36.360

young girls, we get them for the different colleges and things, and they were heavily chaperoned, I must say, not like today. And, uh, I was a chaperone, and we'd go down and they have dancing and feed and drink, and, uh, it made them very nice. Those

00:35:36.370 - 00:36:04.470

who had no relatives, no friends here at all. They immediately made friends, and then they felt, Oh, I have great friends in San Francisco. Mm. There was an awful lot of stuff you can make movies out of. One of the most important places in San Francisco

00:36:04.480 - 00:36:22.360

was the clock in the ST Francis Hotel. The Saint Francis Hotel clock, I think, was perhaps one of the most renowned, trusting points locations you could find in this country. Because when sweethearts went overseas or why husbands went overseas, they would the last thing. I will

00:36:22.360 - 00:36:34.620

see you under the clock at the ST Francis when I get back, and so they would send word and I'll see you there. And that used to be in the lobby. Is you go in off of Powell Street and I imagine thousands upon thousands of couples

00:36:34.630 - 00:36:55.000

did meet under the clock in the ST Francis. Mhm. Everywhere you look, there were men in uniform and everywhere they went, the boys got a hero's welcome. I had no trouble with the Army and the Navy. No, no trouble. No fights, no nothing I didn't have.

00:36:55.010 - 00:37:13.450

I had to fight with the civilian ones. The civilians were jealous because I took care of the boys were not. They were fighting our war. He's one A in the Army, and he's a one in my heart. He's going to help the country. That helped him

00:37:13.460 - 00:37:43.750

to get a start. I love him so because I know he wants to do his part. Or he's one A in the Army and he's a one in my heart. As the months and years past, the atmosphere at Fort Mason changed the war wasn't a grand

00:37:43.750 - 00:38:03.820

adventure anymore. It was a tragedy. The wounded, the prisoners of war, the battle weary had been to hell and back. The city embraced them, opening heart and home to them, and what they loved best was to go up in the nursery and be with the Children.

00:38:03.830 - 00:38:20.140

Play with the Children and it was pathetic. Those men were stalling for that and and they say, and they heard a dog barking. They say it's a dog barking. You see, they had been in prison or they've been on the battlefield or in the big on

00:38:20.140 - 00:38:51.130

the big battleships. When none of that sort of thing. They were starved for all of that, and we wanted to give it to them. And to make them feel home had not changed. Yeah. With sites like these, fresh in their memories, the leading statesmen of the

00:38:51.140 - 00:39:35.360

world convened in San Francisco on April 25 1945 for the signing of the United Nations Charter. Right? Yeah. Mm, yeah. Mm, yeah, yeah. Mhm. Mhm, Mhm, Mhm, Mhm. The assemblies took place daily in the opera house where local volunteers acted as hostess is Janet Bates. Then

00:39:35.360 - 00:39:47.540

Mrs Mortem of Fly Shocker Jr was head usher in the main hall. People who came through the door, I saw them. I got to know them. They didn't have a clue as to who I was except the lady at the door of the Red Cross uniform.

00:39:47.820 - 00:40:04.270

But it was very they recognized me is that maybe he was there every day, and I would I think it was six weeks every day standing at that door and seen the important people of the world come through. That was very exciting, very, very exciting. San

00:40:04.270 - 00:40:22.730

Francisco's elite saw the charter signing as a feather in the city's camp, and they took every opportunity to prove to the world's leaders that the city was as sophisticated and cultured as Paris or London had ever been to. The charter signing became the social event of

00:40:22.730 - 00:40:46.180

the decade. The British. Of course, we're very much in demand and, as I say, Anthony was. And then, of course, speaking of the glamour boys, the Saudi Arabians were well, they were new to us here and with their flowing robes. And then I guess we still

00:40:46.180 - 00:41:09.310

had Rudolph Valentino in the sheik and mind or something. There are parties almost every day here, and I think that's why they finally came to a decision on the United Nations Charter because the people were constantly meeting in houses and where they'd be laughter and jokes.

00:41:09.320 - 00:41:39.360

And they weren't always, you know, always trying to worry about the future and get all brought up and think that one country was getting more than another country. They met on a social basis. Yeah, mhm. On June 26th, 1945. President Truman, just recently sworn in after

00:41:39.360 - 00:42:01.310

the death of President Roosevelt, presided at the San Francisco Opera House as the world's leaders joined together to form the United Nations. All right, we had such high hopes. You just don't know. We thought, Ah, we've got it all solved and our young people who had

00:42:01.310 - 00:42:35.710

been fighting and coming home, they wanted to change the world to They said we could never have a thing like this happen again and we felt that we were providing for never having it happened again. Okay, two

00:42:35.710 - 00:42:59.530

months after the signing of the U. N. Charter came the day we'd all been waiting for August 15th, 1945 the war was over. Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again. It's been a long, long time. Mhm. Haven't felt like this, my

00:42:59.530 - 00:43:28.840

dear, since I can't remember when it's been a long, long time, you'll never know how many dreams I dreamed about you or just how empty they all seemed without you. Yeah. Oh, kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again. It's been a

00:43:28.840 - 00:43:52.590

long, long time when the confetti cleared, the party has found a changed city. Suddenly, life had gotten very complicated. Too many of us. The end of the war was as unsettling as the war itself. Al Santucci was a high school and college football star who had

00:43:52.590 - 00:44:11.150

always expected to play pro ball. But after being a prisoner of war, he returned home. Weighing only £110 he went into his father's laundry business. His friends Eddie Forest and Ellen Beals joined the starting lineup of the very 1st 49 years Pro ball team in 1946.

00:44:11.590 - 00:44:32.310

They had to work our jobs in the offseason to support their families. Milk Viewsonic decided he couldn't afford a career in pro ball and became an insurance broker instead. Morgan Yamanaka wasn't released from internment camp until 1947. He eventually regained his American citizenship, went to college

00:44:32.350 - 00:44:49.850

and became a professor at San Francisco State Brushes. Mac lost her job and her Oh, as soon as the war ended, she worked as a maid for a while, then as a cook at the Alameda Naval Base. She never left Richmond. Pat Brown eventually became governor

00:44:49.850 - 00:45:09.440

of California and started his own political dynasty with son Jerry Anna Logan. Upton welcomed home her husband and took great joy in raising her three Children. She continued to volunteer their time and money to the community. Herb Cain got his old job back at The Chronicle,

00:45:09.730 - 00:45:25.560

but things were never the same. I came back in 1946 and had a hard time getting started together. The order of the city was changing. It used to be like an island that was sort of cut off from reality, cut off from the world before the

00:45:25.560 - 00:45:38.530

bridges were built, you and it was a foggy night. You really felt you were out in the ocean. Only a ferryboat to connect you with the mainland. The bridge has changed that. And then the war changed it even more by bringing thousands of people through the

00:45:38.530 - 00:45:54.790

city had never realized what a lovely little secret we had here. So back they came by the thousands. Ed Fisher was one of those who came back to stay. He survived three years in a Japanese prison camp and remembers his first day back in San Francisco

00:45:54.820 - 00:46:23.710

as one of the happiest in his life. Oh, I remember that I remember That goes in deep bridge. Yeah. Big sign right there on the hill. Welcome back, job. Well done. Remember the the crowds. And I remember going to Letterman Hospital and then leaving the hospital

00:46:23.760 - 00:46:49.910

in my pajamas that night. You're going to okay, throw the town depends up people buying the strengths. As a matter of fact, I went out without money and I came back with about $50. So, uh, I remember the war was over, but the rush was on

00:46:50.680 - 00:47:07.240

by the end of the fort. Is millions of people settled here who didn't even know about us before the they filled up our universities. They drove their cars across our bridges and our freshly paved freeways. They build homes and parks and schools in suburbs that became

00:47:07.240 - 00:47:25.730

cities under themselves. They put on uniforms and went to war again in Korea in 1950 Vietnam later, they had more babies than any generation before them. They got hip in the fifties and dropped out in the sixties. They hopped up to eight health food in the

00:47:25.730 - 00:47:48.740

seventies. They turned our little frontier town into a big city with all the problems of a big city. But there were some things they couldn't change. The beauty of the bay on the foggy morning, The glamour of our hills The wisdom of our tolerant waves For

00:47:48.740 - 00:48:19.410

some of us, sharing the wealth spoiled the fun. But for so many more Yep. Was a dream come true? Stay with us when we return A look back at San Francisco in the 19 fifties one because I heard that song before the lyrics said forever More

00:48:19.980 - 00:48:36.480

memory. Mhm, Please lay everything. Uh huh. Remember? Just went out of her bed. Lovely me.