NPC in History: V-E Day and the Club Canteens

Gil Klein and Ken Dalecki

May 07, 2020

Seventy-five years ago today, on May 8, 1945, President Harry Truman – just three weeks after taking office – announced to reporters that Germany had accepted unconditional surrender, ending hostilities in Europe.

V-E Day was declared in front page banner headlines in the afternoon newspapers across the country.

National Press Club President Michael Freedman had planned to commemorate the day this weekend by recreating the legendary National Press Club WWII canteens that entertained servicemen every Saturday.

As this is not a normal year, this article will explain what happened on May 8, 1945 and describe the role of the canteens in the Club’s history.

May 8, 1945: The Surrender

As Truman finished his remarks, United Press White House correspondent Merriman Smith set out full tilt to reach his telephone. Tripping over a photographer’s ladder, he crashed to the ground, suffering a severely dislocated shoulder.

Undeterred, he jumped up and got to his phone in time to beat the competition to the story. Only then did he allow the White House physician to take him to the hospital.

For a day of such momentous news, the response in Washington was muted, according to that day’s Washington Evening Star. No jubilation, no sailors seeking nurses to kiss on the streets.

The focus of the war was moving to the Pacific. V-J Day and the war’s end was still three months away.

Reported the Star:

“Washington residents stopped just long enough to hear President Truman proclaim the day of victory in Europe, and then began marking V-E Day by returning quietly to the job, reminded that there’s still a war to be won in the Pacific.”

That doesn’t mean that Washingtonians – and all Americans – were not aware of the momentousness of the day, said University of Virginia history professor William Ingersoll Hitchcock.

“V-E Day for Americans represented the triumph of democracy over totalitarian rule,” he said. “The fascist states seemed to be the most impressive and powerful, while democratic states were struggling to survive. Victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 showed that democracy could win out over totalitarian rulers. And that’s how people understood the struggle at the time.”

American Legion Post 20 and the National Press Club Canteen

Vice President Harry S Truman entertains the troops with an assist from Lauren Bacall.

While the National Press Club was the nerve center for wartime Washington journalism from the moment members gathered on the morning of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Club is best known for a series of Saturday canteens during the war organized by the Club’s American Legion Post 20 to entertain servicemen.

Soldiers, sailors and airmen from bases throughout the region congregated at the Club for free hotdogs and beer. Politicians could come, but they could not speak for more than two minutes. Big-name entertainers began to show up.

It all began in November, 1942 when the Club received a call from the chaplain of the H.M.S. Essex, then being refitted at the Norfolk Navy Yard. The chaplain had 80 sailors seeking to come to Washington for sightseeing. Where should they go for entertainment? A few members got together, arranged for the sailors to come to the Club and drink all the beer they could hold.

It was such a hit that the Club quickly made it a weekly affair sponsored by its American Legion Post 20, which had been formed in 1919 with World War I veterans and included Gen. John J. Pershing as an original dues-paying member.

Dubbed the National Press Club Canteen, every Saturday the ballroom was open to any American or Allied serviceman who wanted to come. It soon became a principal port of call for every soldier or sailor on weekend leave. Up to 700 showed up each week.

The affair was for enlisted men. No brass need apply. But the Club thought the servicemen would like to see some representatives of the nation who were sending them around the world to fight. Senators, representatives, Cabinet members, and even eight out of nine members of the Supreme Court showed up. (Some of the men found it amusing that they were eating frankfurters with Justice Felix Frankfurter.).

Military bands – the Marine Band, the Army Band, the Air Corps Band, the Coast Guard Band -- entertained. Bands from local military bases appeared.They played boogie-woogie. Entertainers showed up for impromptu performances, including the entire chorus of Earl Carrol’s Follies.

And that brings us to Feb.10, 1945.

Lauren Bacall’s big breakthrough hit, “To Have and Have Not,” had just been released. She and Humphrey Bogart had begun an affair that was capturing some headlines. As part of the movie’s publicity, Warner Bros. studio wanted her to appear at the Press Club Canteen. At first, she balked, saying she wanted to be with Bogie, but after a personal appeal from Jack Warner, she relented. Her press agent Charles Einfeld came with her.

At the same time, Truman, still relatively unknown after Roosevelt plucked him out of the Senate to be his running mate, was living in an apartment on Connecticut Avenue. He had been Vice President for three weeks. He told his wife, Bess, that he was going to the Press Club to entertain the troops. After all, he was an accomplished piano player. It was an all-men’s Club. How could he get in any trouble?

In her memoir, “By Myself and Then Some,” Bacall remembered the day this way:

“The club was jammed that day – Vice President Truman was coming over. When he was introduced – after me! – he sat down to play the piano, which had conveniently been placed onstage. Charlie, who was standing to one side of the floor, edged toward me on the corner of the stage and said, ‘Get on the piano.’ I felt a bit silly … but I did it. Cameras started flashing. The Vice President and I exchanged a few words, and the resulting pictures hit the front pages all over the world in a few days, Charlie Einfeld was worth every cent and more that Warner paid him. Truman was not wild about the picture after he became President, but I loved it.”

World War II Veteran Jack Crawford with American Legion Post 20 Commander Jim Noone.

Annapolis Naval Academy graduate Jack Crawford, 100, was studying naval architecture at MIT when he got word of victory in Europe. Crawford began his World War II service in the Pacific where he survived sinking of the USS Yorktown at the Battle of Midway. He objected to being assigned to PT boat training ("The heck with that!") and managed a reassignment to ships in support of the invasion of North Africa and the campaign in Italy before being ordered to study at MIT. He went on to become top aide to Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the U.S. nuclear Navy, and to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission.

John Metelsky, 92, is the Post's only Merchant Marine veteran. Metelsky made his first deployment in 1944 aboard a Norwegian tanker out of New York City bound for England. He was just 16 and recalled being treated kindly by his roughneck shipmates. He helped ferry supplies to France during the D-Day invasion and saw service in the Mediterranean by war's end.

Another Post 20 member who served in WWII but not in Europe is Alvin Spivak, 92. Alvin was 17 and a copy boy at the Philadelphia Bulletin when the AP teletype machine banged out the official V-E Day announcement on May 8. He recalled the AP being highly criticized for breaking an embargo and announcing the surrender on May 7, the date on which the surrender documents were signed by Adolf Hitler's successor Admiral Karl Doenitz. Although Spivak never saw combat, he jokes about being a "technical veteran" of World War II because President Truman did not declare the war's end until February 1946. By then Spivak was part of the U.S. Army occupation force in Japan.

“We are privileged to have these WWII veterans as part of our Post,” said Commander Jim Noone. “They have been an inspiration to the younger members.”

The Club and American Legion Post 20 still plan to honor World War II veterans and commemorate the historic canteens on Saturday, August 15, the 75^th anniversary of V-J Day (Victory over Japan) and the day that marked the end of the Second World War.

“These anniversaries remind us of the challenges that we, as Americans, have faced throughout our history,” said Freedman. “Each has tested our resolve as a nation and required dramatic sacrifice. Today, we face a new and different challenge. The courage and perseverance displayed by Americans in World War II can and should inspire us as we tackle what is before us now.”

Much of the story about the Club’s canteen comes from the new Club history, “Tales from the National Press Club,” published last month by The History Press.