In 1942, the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies, occupying it for the next three and a half years. In September 1944, with the war going badly, the Japanese promised independence, but the following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered. Under the terms of the surrender, the Japanese forces still in the archipelago were responsible for maintaining order prior to the arrival of allied forces under British Admiral Earl Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command. Two days after the surrender, on 17 August 1945, Indonesian nationalist leader Sukarno proclaimed independence for Indonesia. The Allies learned of this three weeks later from the commander of the Japanese forces, and because there were still at least 70,000 Allied prisoners of war in Indonesia, RAPWI (Recovery of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees) was sent on a mission by the Allies to "try to contact the responsible Japanese authorities, alleviate conditions in the prison camps and arrange the evacuation of the prisoners and internees."