I just received and read the Spring issue of Missouri S&T Magazine. I enjoy the articles and especially the notes about the old-timers of my generation and before. 

However, I was disturbed by something in the article on page 38 titled “Reliving History.” My hat is off to men like Joseph Senne (MS CE’51) who fought in that war and won it, but a phrase in the article stated “… the peace treaty with Japan … .” Joseph and others of the Greatest Generation won that war. Period. The U.S. did not negotiate a peace treaty. Japan signed an unconditional surrender. There is a difference.

In today’s politically correct world we seem to have forgotten what winning is. Please don’t forget that there was a generation that won. Completely, unconditionally.

Sincerely,
Henry R. Atkinson, CE’56
Richmond, Va.

Editor’s Note:  Thank you very much for your note and for pointing out our error in using the phrase “peace treaty with Japan” to characterize the terms of Japan’s surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, to mark the end of World War II. It would have been more accurate for us to have written that Senne was on Okinawa when “Japan surrendered” or “Japan signed the instruments of surrender” on that date.