On board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan officially surrenders to the Allies, ending World War II.
In the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was inevitable. The Japanese Navy and Air Force were destroyed. Japan’s Allied naval blockade and heavy bombardment of Japanese cities had devastated the country and its economy. At the end of June, the Americans captured Okinawa, a Japanese island from which the Allies could launch an invasion of the main islands of Japanese origin. US General Douglas MacArthur was in charge of the invasion, which was codenamed “Operation Olympic” and was scheduled for November 1945.
The invasion of Japan promised to be the bloodiest sea attack ever, probably 10 times more expensive than the invasion of Normandy in terms of Allied losses. On July 16, a new option became available when the United States secretly detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. Ten days later, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding the “unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces”. Failure to comply would mean “the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and equally inevitable the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.” On July 28, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki responded by telling reporters that his government “was paying no attention” to the Allied ultimatum. US President Harry S. Truman ordered the devastation to continue, and on August 6 the US B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing around 80,000 people and fatally injuring thousands more.
After the attack on Hiroshima, a faction of the Supreme War Council of Japan pushed for acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, but the majority resisted unconditional surrender. On August 8, Japan’s plight took a turn for the worse when the USSR declared war on Japan. The next day, Soviet forces attacked in Manchuria, quickly crushing Japanese positions there, and a second American atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese coastal city of Nagasaki.
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Just before midnight on August 9, Japanese Emperor Hirohito convened the Supreme War Council. After a long and moving debate, he supported a proposal by Prime Minister Suzuki in which Japan would accept the Potsdam Declaration “on the understanding that the said declaration does not compromise any requirement which undermines the prerogatives of His Majesty as sovereign sovereign. The council obeyed Hirohito’s acceptance of peace and on August 10 the message was delivered to the United States.
At the beginning of August 12, the United States responded that “the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese government to run the state will be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers.” After two days of debate over what that statement entailed, Emperor Hirohito brushed aside nuances from the text and said peace was better than destruction. He ordered the Japanese government to prepare a text accepting the surrender.
In the early hours of August 15, a military coup was attempted by a faction led by Major Kenji Hatanaka. The rebels took control of the Imperial Palace and burned down Prime Minister Suzuki’s residence, but soon after dawn the coup was crushed. At noon that day, Emperor Hirohito went on national radio for the first time to announce the Japanese surrender. In his unfamiliar court language, he told his subjects, “We have resolved to pave the way for great peace for all generations to come by enduring the unbearable and suffering the unbearable. The United States immediately accepted Japan’s surrender.
WATCH: Japan surrenders
President Truman appointed MacArthur to head the Allied occupation of Japan as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. For the site of Japan’s official surrender, Truman chose the USS Missouri, a battleship which had seen considerable action in the Pacific and was named after Truman’s native state. MacArthur, tasked with presiding over the surrender, postponed the ceremony until September 2 to allow time for representatives of all the major Allied powers to arrive.
On Sunday, September 2, more than 250 Allied warships were at anchor in Tokyo Bay. The flags of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China flew above the Bridge of the Missouri. Just after 9 a.m. Tokyo time, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed on behalf of the Japanese government. General Yoshijiro Umezu then signed for the Japanese armed forces, and his aides cried as they signed.
Supreme Commander MacArthur then signed, saying, “It is my sincere hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world will emerge from the blood and carnage of the past.” Ten other signatures were made, respectively by the United States, China, Great Britain, the USSR, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands and New Zealand. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz signed for the United States. At the end of the 20-minute ceremony, the sun broke through low clouds. The most devastating war in human history was over.
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