Beach Party: 1945

Karl Shapiro wrote poems even while slogging through the South Pacific, and that poetry won prizes back home. This photo, and the comments, make me think of three of his "going home" poems published in 1947: "Homecoming," "The Voyage," and "Demobilization." Here are the first lines of "Homecoming":

Lost in the vastness of the void Pacific
My thousand days of exile, pain,
Bid me farewell. Gone is the Southern Cross
To her own sky, fallen a continent
Under the wave, dissolved the bitterest isles
In their salt element,
And here upon the deck the mist encloses
My smile that would light up all darkness
And ask forgiveness of the things that thrust
Shame and all death on millions and on me.

It looks like they are drinking Blatz.

The men were enjoying their beverages in heavy aluminum cone top cans. By the early '60s, they were replaced by lighter pull top cans, which were replaced again by the stay tab we know today.

Judging by the big grins, this must be after Japan capitulated. A few weeks before, these guys thought they were going to fight their way across the Japanese mainland. Instead, most are going home.

Interesting to see the cone-top (Crowntainer) beer cans, but I can't make out the brand name. It looks like they are all swigging brake fluid, which still can be had in a similarly shaped container today.

Man, I can just hear "Under the Southern Cross," or better yet, the beginning section of "The Pacific Boils Over" from Richard Rodgers' score playing right now. No, wait; maybe "There Is Nothing Like a Dame" from that other little thing he wrote.