The first ten days of August 1945 had been disastrous for Japan.
Having seemingly ignored the 26 July Potsdam
Declaration of Allied terms, the beaten and increasingly devastated
nation's military clung to hope that the coming invasion of the
home islands would be beaten back at great cost to the invaders,
making possible a more favorable negotiated peace.
However, on 6 August, the Hiroshima atomic bombing demonstrated
that the "prompt and utter distruction" promised by
the Potsdam Declaration was now at hand. That message was reinforced
by the Nagasaki bomb three days later. A fast-moving Soviet invasion
of Manchuria on the same day shattered any expectation that Japan's
large army could hold back her enemies' conventional forces. This
triple shock prompted, after several difficult meetings of his
chief officials, the Japanese Emperor's decision to end the War
by accepting the Allies' terms, a decision announced on 14 August.
Eighteen days of celebrations, preparations, prisoner of war
recovery and initial occupation activities by the Allies followed,
initially with considerable wariness of possible Japanese treachery.
Things went relatively smoothly, though, building to a dramatic
climax on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay, when representatives
of Japan's government and her military signed the Instrument of
Surrender on board USS Missouri (BB-63).
This page presents a special pictorial selection on
reactions to Japan's capitulation and on the journey of a group
of Japanese envoys to receive surrender instructions. It provides
links to additional photographs on these subjects, and to selected
views and broader coverage of other aspects of Japan's surrender.
The following pages offer more extensive visual coverage
of reactions to Japan's capitulation and of the flight of Japanese
envoys to Manila to receive surrender instructions:
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