"Called the greatest achievement of organized science," O'Brien wrote, "the explosive crashed with annihilating force Sunday on Hiroshima, Japan."

Three days later would come word that a second atomic bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki.

The war was almost, almost, over. But the suffering would go on for a while.

The day it reported the Hiroshima attack, The Inquirer carried the news that two more local sailors had been killed in the fighting and that 18 others had been wounded.

The dead were Ira Bertram Malaby Jr., a radarman second class from Ruscom Street, and Jake Albert Vahey, a fire controlman third class from South Wilton Street. Each was given three lines on Page One.

After so much war, death was almost routine.

'Triumphant crescendo'

At 7 p.m., after a day of rumors, Truman made the announcement. Japan had quit.

It was Tuesday, Aug. 14, 1945. William C. Farson, a rewrite man for The Inquirer, pulled together a rather florid lead local story for the morning paper.

"Philadelphia gave vent to its elation over Japan's surrender last night with the wildest, noisiest, most joyous celebration this old city has ever seen," he wrote.

"Around City Hall, the tumult was terrifying in its intensity, women and girls clutched at their throats, as if in fright, as the voices of countless thousands rose in a great, triumphant crescendo and echoed in what seemed still greater volume from the walls of the tall mid-city structures. Girls and servicemen hugged and kissed each other - and danced."

The Inquirer itself fired off round after round from several small cannons anchored on its clock tower.

"The blast reverberated throughout mid-town Philadelphia," the newspaper seemed to boast. "The accompanying bright flashes from the guns' muzzles lent a pyrotechnic note to the tumultuous N. Broad st. scene."

Peace, as well as war, had its casualties.

In Montgomery County, Abington Fire Marshal Walter Cox collapsed and died while shooting off a pistol at his house, The Inquirer reported.

And in Delaware County, John A. Ferges, 69, of Media, was accidentally shot and killed during an impromptu parade outside the State Street armory.

If the celebration could not be contained, neither could the change coming in Philadelphia and in America.

Newspapers, The Inquirer included, were accustomed to breaking news that came from the police beat or City Hall. In years ahead, the papers would have to learn to cover bigger, more complex stories that, as an Inquirer editor one day would put it, did not break but oozed.

These would include the resuming decline for old industries, but also the growth of a new pharmaceutical industry; the death of shipyards, but also the birth of Boeing helicopters; the deterioration of old neighborhoods, but the spreading of vast suburbs.

For two days after the surrender, with government offices and department stores closed, Philadelphia partied.