General News
10 August, 2024
Veterans' Voices: Japanese surrender ends WWII
- Sally Bertram, RSL Military History Library. Contact Sally at sj.bertram@hotmail.com or call 0409 351 940.
On August 15 1945 it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II.
Since then, both August 14 (in the United States, because of the time difference) and August 15 have been known as VP (Victory in the Pacific) or V-J (Victory over Japan) Day.
In August 1945 Australian governments gazetted VP Day as a public holiday.
The term has also been used for September 2 1945 when Japan’s formal surrender took place aboard USS Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay.
Coming several months after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Japan’s capitulation in the Pacific brought six years of hostilities to a final and highly anticipated close.
After the atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Russia also declared war on Japan.
The United States had been conducting air raids on Japan since late 1944.
Japan, faced with the threat of invasion and further nuclear attacks, surrendered on August 15 1945.
"Fellow citizens, the war is over" - with these words Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley announced the end of the war.
After almost six long years of fighting across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the Pacific, people in Australia and around the world rejoiced.
The signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on board USS Missouri at the start of September officially ended World War II.
Australian regional memorials have long been at the heart of community commemoration of our servicemen and women.
Each Anzac Day and Remembrance Day local communities gather around town memorials to commemorate those who left their community to join other service personnel in the defence of freedom.
Originally people knitted their own costumes to mark the historic day.
Thousands of people flocked to the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne to mark VP Day in 1945.
Every town in Australia celebrated the day.
Horsham had two celebrations in the town hall.
As news of Japan's surrender spread across the Pacific, Allied troops were able to move into Japanese-occupied areas.
They liberated thousands of men and women from prisoner-of-war and internment camps across the Pacific.
The Repatriation of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees (RAPWI) organisation worked with all branches of the Australian Armed Forces to care for the newly freed prisoners.
They established lists with the names and information of survivors so that their anxious families could be informed.
Most of the almost 15,000 POWs were suffering from disease, malnutrition and/or injuries.
They were sent to RAPWI camps to be treated and fed before starting their journey back to Australia.
As the Australian prisoners were brought home, so too were the men and women who had served in the Pacific.
Some personnel remained in the Pacific and in the Australian-led British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) in Japan.
From early 1946, approximately 16,000 Australians worked with other Allied personnel to demilitarise Japan and assist in the rebuilding of Japanese society.
For the former prisoners and the service men and women returning home, a lot had changed in their absence.
They returned to family and friends who in some cases had not seen them for more than four years.
The country too had changed as it had adapted to the demands of the war.
Almost one million Australians had served in uniform during World War II and about 40,000 had lost their lives.
The end of the war brought heartache for many families when, after years of waiting for news of the missing, they were told that their loved ones were not coming home.
For so many Australians, too much had happened, too many lives had been lost and too many families had been changed for life to ever go back to ‘normal’.
Borneo 1945
Seventy-nine years ago Australian forces successfully led the Allied liberation of Borneo, the world's third-biggest island, from Japanese occupation in the OBOE series of operations.
These operations culminated in OBOE 2, the amphibious assault on Balikpapan - the last large-scale Allied operation of World War II - and remain Australia's largest-ever amphibious assault.
As the culmination of the Royal Australian Navy's participation in more than 20 south-west Pacific amphibious landings during World War II, the Balikpapan invasion demonstrated the high level of expertise in amphibious operations that had been achieved, as well as the degree to which joint and combined operations had developed during almost six years of war.