The newspaper dated May 8, 1945, is yellowed and torn, held together in places by scotch tape.
The banner headline jumps out at you in 2 1/2-inch letters: V-E DAY PROCLAIMED. On either side of the name plate – The Daily Herald (Provo, Utah) – is the word, “Extra,” in smaller but very bold type.
In that extra, the Herald quickly relayed the news when President Harry S. Truman announced Germany’s unconditional surrender ending the European phase of World War II tour decades ago.
Undoubtedly hundreds of other dailies, large and small, used an extra to report the Allied victory, one of the century’s biggest stories. And again when V-J Day came in mid-August, winding up the Pacific stage of the war.
Extras – largely street editions put out between regular press runs to cover news breaks of extraordinary importance – were employed as appropriate during War II and long before that. Then they pretty much went out of style. The need had been diminished by the expanding electronic media coverage and its quick news bulletins.
To partly explain my preserving a tattered copy of a V-E Day extra, l had both a personal interest and a journalistic one. Before being drafted into the Navy in 1943, I was city editor of The Daily Herald, and virtually my entire news career has been with this daily and Scripps League Newspapers, Inc.
That extra, by the way, was published through the initiative of two revered senior colleagues now deceased – Editor Ernest R. Rasmuson and Publisher L. B. (Jack) Tackett – who also put out an extra April 12, 1945 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt died and another when Japan surrendered.
This week considerable news copy is aimed at marking the 40th anniversary of the victory in Europe. For my part, let’s elaborate on the extra, which for so many years added a special touch of romance and excitement in newspapering.
In Utah both the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News – in addition to the Herald – had extras on V-E and V-J Days. We used to print extras almost at drop of a hat – even after some championship prizefights, says John W. Gallivan, former Tribune publisher. But V-J Day was our last one.
Extras date back a long time and it isn’t hard to visualize special editions announcing President Lincoln’s assassination or the massacre of Custers troops at the Little Big Horn. Here are a few from more recent times:
- A special edition of the New York American April 16, 1912 reported the tragic sinking of the Titantic.
- The Indianapolis Star had an extra April 3, 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany.
- A San Francisco Examiner special Nov. 11, 1918, announced the World war I Armistice had been signed.
- A Cleveland Plain Dealer extra bannered the killing of arch criminal John Dillinger in Chicago July 23, 1934.
- The Seattle Daily Times had a war extra Dec. 8, 1941, announcing a Blackout Tonight in the Northwest, the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed.
- Another Times extra bannered the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day June 6, 1944.
- When the San Francisco Chronicle announced V-J Day it displayed the word, PEACE, across the page in eight-inch-high letters!
While extras waned after the war, they’re still available as a newspaper tool if and when needed. Charles Carver, former editor of the Ogden Standard Examiner in Utah, says that paper published an extra in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated. How many other newspapers did also?
Maybe extras, as we once knew them will continue to show up once in awhile. But for the most part, the cries of, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it,” now live only in memory as ghosts of the past.