


"It was the deadliest riot in the city's history," said Kevin Mullen, a retired deputy chief of police who has written extensively about crime in San Francisco.


"A looting, smashing crowd is tearing up Market Street tonight," Chronicle reporter Stanton Delaplane wrote at 8 o'clock that Wednesday night. "... this crowd is out of hand. You couldn't stop it if you tried, not short of tear gas and fire hoses."

Historian Charles Fracchia noted: "The only city in the United States that celebrated the end of the war with a riot was San Francisco." He used the 1945 victory riot as the opening chapter of his book, "City by the Bay," a history of San Francisco from 1945 to the 21st century.



"When I wrote about it, people would tell me, 'God I never heard of this before,' " Fracchia said. "And yet it was the worst riot in San Francisco's history in terms of people killed."

The Japanese had indicated they would accept the Allies' terms for surrender two days before, and it became official at 3:10 p.m. California time on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 1945 -- Aug. 15 in Japan -- the kind of day people remember forever. Strangers embraced on the street, people had a drink, and men and women thought of the kind of world it would be without a war. They thought of simple things.

"Women could buy nylon stockings," Robert O'Brien wrote in The Chronicle. There were other things to look forward to, "Oxford cloth shirts, long automobile rides in the country, a voyage on a tramp steamer, Scotch whisky and cigarettes by the carton ... ."

The war had affected everyone in the country; there were few families that did not have a son or daughter in the military; there were millions of soldiers, sailors and leathernecks. San Francisco was in the center of it all -- more than 1.6 million service members had shipped out for the Pacific from Treasure Island, from Alameda, from Fort Mason in San Francisco. The bay was ringed with shipyards.

"I was only a kid then," said Fracchia, former president of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, "But I remember going downtown, and there was nothing but uniforms, soldiers, sailors, just everywhere."

When the war was over, there was a huge sense of relief. The Army military police and the Navy shore patrol and the San Francisco police got official orders: "Let the people do anything within reason," The Chronicle reported, "and keep property damage down."

The first day -- V-J Day -- was like a pleasant round of drinks, a nice feeling. The second day was different.

"If you pull all restraints off and add liquor, that's what happens," said Mullen, the former deputy police chief. "Everybody went nuts. These were not veterans, they were young people who hadn't been in the war. They were not warriors," he said.

They hadn't seen the war, and now they didn't have to. There would be no invasion of Japan, no long casualty lists. These young men would not see combat. So they got drunk. They were all drunk, the reporter Delaplane wrote. One in four, he thought, was "falling down drunk."

"You put young girls with them and add liquor, and that's what happens," Mullen said. Some of the women were not so willing; there were several rapes, some gang rapes reported by eyewitnesses, but none was ever officially reported.

There were many small, sad stories. Stella and John Morris had waited for the war to end to begin a new life. They were married at 4:30 that Wednesday afternoon, and that night they were run down walking on Van Ness Avenue by a drunken driver. Stella Morris was killed, her husband, a Navy seaman, badly hurt. The driver was never caught.

At 11 o'clock that night, the authorities finally moved in on Market Street. All leaves had been canceled, all police and military police reserves called up.

Deputy Police Chief Michael Riordan read the riot act; he was one of those old-time San Francisco Irish cops, and he had a bullhorn.

"This is an illegal assembly," he said in his rich Irish brogue. "I command you to disperse." The police and military moved up Market, sweeping the rioters before them.

Mullen blames the police for what happened. They were not prepared, he said. They had no plan. The result was a riot and many dead people.

There was a huge investigation, grand jury and all. Mayor Roger Lapham was asked about the "general lack of law enforcement.

"The mayor gazed off into space," The Chronicle reported, "and said, 'No comment. (Police Chief Charles) Dullea and the Navy did a good job when they took over.' "

Nothing came of the investigation.

"In the postwar euphoria, the whole matter was quickly forgotten," Mullen wrote in "The Toughest Gang in Town," his new book on the dark side of San Francisco criminal justice.

A month later, San Francisco held a big parade on Market Street, led by General Jonathan Wainwright, the hero of Corrigedor. Half a million people came to see the real war veterans. There was no trouble.