Victory over Japan Day


Victory over Japan Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end. The term has been applied to both of the days on which the initial announcement of Japan's surrender was made – 15 August 1945, in Japan, and because of time zone differences, 14 August 1945 – as well as to 2 September 1945, when the surrender document was signed, officially ending World War II.
15 August is the official V-J Day for the United Kingdom, while the official US commemoration is 2 September. The name, V-J Day, had been selected by the Allies after they named V-E Day for the victory in Europe.
On 2 September 1945, formal surrender occurred aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. In Japan, August 15 usually is known as the "memorial day for the end of the war"; the official name for the day, however, is "the day for mourning of war dead and praying for peace". This official name was adopted in 1982 by an ordinance issued by the Japanese government.

Surrender

Events before V-J Day

Within three months of the end of the war in Europe on May 9, the USSR would join the Allied fight against Japan, as agreed upon at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. On August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and attacked Japanese forces not only in Manchuria on mainland Asia, but also on the Kuril islands and Sakhalin, threatening to attack and occupy Hokkaido. Already on 6 August, and again on 9 August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, with a "Third Shot" not possible before August 19. The Japanese government on August 10 communicated its intention to surrender under the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, but that was not yet the end of hostilities.
The news of the Japanese offer began early celebrations around the world. Allied soldiers in London danced in a conga line on Regent Street. Americans and Frenchmen in Paris paraded on the Champs-Élysées singing "Don't Fence Me In". American soldiers in occupied Berlin shouted "It's over in the Pacific", and hoped that they would now not be transferred there to fight the Japanese. Germans stated that the Japanese were wise enough—unlike themselves—to give up in a hopeless situation, and were grateful that the atomic bomb was not ready in time to be used against them. Moscow newspapers briefly reported on the atomic bombings with no commentary of any kind. While "Russians and foreigners alike could hardly talk about anything else", the Soviet government refused to make any statements on the bombs' implication for politics or science.
In Chongqing, Chinese fired firecrackers and "almost buried Americans in gratitude". In Manila, residents sang "God Bless America". On Okinawa, six men were killed and dozens were wounded as American soldiers "took every weapon within reach and started firing into the sky" to celebrate; ships sounded general quarters and fired anti-aircraft guns as their crews believed that a kamikaze attack was occurring. On Tinian island, B-29 crews preparing for their next mission over Japan were told that it was cancelled, but that they could not celebrate because it might be rescheduled for a "Third Shot".

Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration

A little after noon Japan Standard Time on 15 August 1945, Emperor Hirohito's announcement of Japan's acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration was broadcast to the Japanese people over the radio. Earlier the same day, the Japanese government had broadcast an announcement over Radio Tokyo that "acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation coming soon", and had advised the Allies of the surrender by sending a cable to U.S. President Harry S Truman via the Swiss diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C. A nationwide broadcast by Truman was aired at seven o'clock p.m. on Tuesday, 14 August, announcing the communication and that the formal event was scheduled for September 2. In his announcement of Japan's surrender on 14 August, Truman said that "the proclamation of V-J Day must wait upon the formal signing of the surrender terms by Japan".
Since the European Axis powers had surrendered three months earlier, V-J Day was the effective end of World War II, although a peace treaty between Japan and most of the Allies was not signed until 1952, and between Japan and the Soviet Union until 1956. In Australia, the name V-P Day was used from the outset. The Canberra Times of 14 August 1945, refers to V-P Day celebrations, and a public holiday for V-P Day was gazetted by the government in that year according to the Australian War Memorial.

Public celebrations

After news of the Japanese acceptance and before Truman's announcement, civilians began celebrating "as if joy had been rationed and saved up for the three years, eight months and seven days since Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941", Life magazine reported. In Washington, D.C. a crowd attempted to break into the White House grounds as they shouted "We want Harry!"
In San Francisco two nude women jumped into a pond at the Civic Center to soldiers' cheers. More seriously, thousands of drunken people, the vast majority of them Navy enlistees who had not served in the war theatre, embarked in what the San Francisco Chronicle summarized in 2015 as "a three-night orgy of vandalism, looting, assault, robbery, rape and murder" and "the deadliest riots in the city's history", with more than 1,000 people injured, 13 killed, and at least six women raped. None of these acts resulted in serious criminal charges, and no civilian or military official was sanctioned, leading the Chronicle to conclude that "the city simply tried to pretend the riots never happened".
The largest crowd in the history of New York City's Times Square gathered to celebrate. The victory itself was announced by a headline on the "zipper" news ticker at One Times Square, which read "OFFICIAL *** TRUMAN ANNOUNCES JAPANESE SURRENDER ***"; the six asterisks represented the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. In the Garment District, workers threw out cloth scraps and ticker tape, leaving a pile five inches deep on the streets. The news of the war's end sparked a "coast-to-coast frenzy of kissing... everyone in skirts that happened along," with Life publishing photographs of such kisses in Washington, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Miami.

Famous photographs

One of the best-known kisses that day appeared in V-J Day in Times Square, one of the most famous photographs ever published by Life. It was shot on August 14, 1945, shortly before the announcement by President Truman occurred and when people were beginning to gather in celebration. Alfred Eisenstaedt went to Times Square to take candid photographs and spotted a sailor who "grabbed something in white. And I stood there, and they kissed. And I snapped four times." The same moment was captured in a very similar photograph by Navy photographer Victor Jorgensen, published in the New York Times. Several people have since claimed to be the sailor or the female, who was long assumed to be a nurse. It has since been established that the woman in the Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph was actually a dental assistant named Greta Zimmer Friedman, who clarified in a later interview that "I was grabbed by a sailor and it wasn't that much of a kiss, it was more of a jubilant act that he didn't have to go back, I found out later, he was so happy that he did not have to go back to the Pacific where they already had been through the war. And the reason he grabbed someone dressed like a nurse was that he just felt very grateful to nurses who took care of the wounded."
Another famous image is that of the Dancing Man in Elizabeth Street, Sydney, captured by a press photographer and a Movietone newsreel. The film and stills from it have taken on iconic status in Australian history and culture as a symbol of victory in the war.

Japanese reaction

On August 15 and 16, some Japanese soldiers, devastated by the surrender, committed suicide. Well over 100 American prisoners of war were also murdered. In addition, many Australian and British prisoners of war were murdered in Borneo, at both Ranau and Sandakan, by the Imperial Japanese Army. At Batu Lintang camp, also in Borneo, death orders were found which proposed the murder of some 2,000 POWs and civilian internees on September 15, 1945, but the camp was liberated four days before these orders were due to be carried out. Japanese forces remained in combat with Soviet forces on several fronts for two weeks following V-J Day.

Ceremony aboard USS ''Missouri''

The formal signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender took place on board the battleship in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, and at that time Truman declared September 2 to be the official V-J Day.

Chronology

  • April 1 – June 21, 1945: Battle of Okinawa. 82,000+ US military casualties, and 117,000+ Japanese and Okinawan. Approximately one quarter of the Okinawan civilian population died, often in mass suicides organized by the Imperial Japanese Army.
  • July 26: The Potsdam Declaration is issued. Truman tells Japan to surrender or suffer "prompt and utter destruction."
  • July 29: Japan rejects the Potsdam Declaration.
  • August 2: The Potsdam Conference ends.
  • August 6: The US drops an atomic bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima. In a press release 16 hours later, Truman warns Japan to surrender or "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth."
  • August 9: The USSR declares war on Japan, and invades several Japanese-held territories. The US drops another atomic bomb, Fat Man, on Nagasaki.
  • August 10: At the direction of the Emperor, the Japanese Foreign Ministry notifies the Allies of Japan's intention to surrender unconditionally in accordance with the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, providing the Emperor be permitted to remain in place.
  • August 11: The Allies notify the Japanese government of their willingness to accept Japan's surrender as offered.
  • August 14: Allied governments announce the surrender of Japan, and the Emperor informs his people of the fact in an unprecedented radio broadcast. The date is described as "V-J Day" or "V-P Day" in newspapers in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
  • September 2: Official surrender ceremony is held aboard in Tokyo Bay; President Truman declares September 2 as the official "V-J Day".
  • November 1: Scheduled commencement of Operation Olympic, the planned Allied invasion of Kyushu.
  • March 1, 1946: Scheduled commencement of Operation Coronet, the planned Allied invasion of Honshu.
  • September 8, 1951: 48 countries including Japan and most of the Allies sign the Treaty of San Francisco
  • April 28, 1952: The Treaty of San Francisco goes into effect, formally ending the state of war between Japan and most of the Allied countries.
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