Surrender of Japan

> ”Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world, and that God will preserve it always.
> These proceedings are closed.”
>  - General Douglas McArthur
>
>

The ***surrender of Imperial Japan*** was announced by Japanese Emperor Hirohito on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had become incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. Together with Great Britain and China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945—the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction". While publicly stating their intent to fight on to the bitter end, Japan's leaders (the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, also known as the "Big Six") were privately making entreaties to the publicly neutral Soviet Union to mediate peace on terms more favorable to the Japanese. While maintaining a sufficient level of diplomatic engagement with the Japanese to give them the impression they might be willing to mediate, the Soviets were covertly preparing to attack Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea (in addition to South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands) in fulfillment of promises they had secretly made to the United States and the United Kingdom at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences.

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM local time, the United States detonated an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Sixteen hours later, American President Harry S. Truman called again for Japan's surrender, warning them to "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth." Late in the evening of August 8, 1945, in accordance with the Yalta agreements, but in violation of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and soon after midnight on August 9, 1945, the Soviet Union invaded the Imperial Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Hours later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb, this time on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Following these events, Emperor Hirohito intervened and ordered the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to accept the terms the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration for ending the war. After several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup d'état, Emperor Hirohito gave a recorded radio address across the Empire on August 15 announcing the surrender of Japan to the Allies.

On August 28, the occupation of Japan led by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers began. The surrender ceremony was held on September 2, aboard the United States Navy battleship USS Missouri, at which officials from the Japanese government signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, thereby ending the hostilities. Allied civilians and military personnel alike celebrated V-J Day, the end of the war; however, isolated soldiers and personnel from Japan's far-flung forces throughout Asia and the Pacific refused to surrender for months and years afterwards, some even refusing into the 1970s. The role of the atomic bombings in Japan's unconditional surrender, and the ethics of the two attacks, is still debated. The state of war formally ended when the Treaty of San Francisco came into force on April 28, 1952. Four more years passed before Japan and the Soviet Union signed the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, which formally brought an end to their state of war.

(Above Paragraph Source: Wikipedia

## Dignitaries

* Japan
	+ Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu
	+ General Yoshijirō Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff
	+ Major General Yatsuji Nagai
	+ Katsuo Okazaki (Foreign Ministry)
	+ Rear Admiral Tadatoshi Tomioka
	+ Toshikazu Kase (Foreign Ministry)
	+ Lt. General Suichi Miyakazi
	+ Rear Admiral Ichiro Yokoyama
	+ Saburo Ota (Foreign Ministry)
	+ Captain Katsuo Shiba (Navy)
	+ Colonel Kaziyi Sugita

* Allied Powers
	+ Geneal of the Army Douglas McArthur
	+ Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz for the United States (9:12 a.m.)
	+ General Hsu Yung-chang for China (9:13 a.m.)
	+ Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser for the United Kingdom (9:14 a.m.)
	+ Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko for the Soviet Union (9:16 a.m.)
	+ General Sir Thomas Blamey for Australia (9:17 a.m.)
	+ Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave for Canada (9:18 a.m.)
	+ Général de Corps d'Armée Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque for France (9:20 a.m.)
	+ Lieutenant Admiral C. E. L. Helfrich for the Netherlands (9:21 a.m.)
	+ Air Vice-Marshal Leonard M. Isitt for New Zealand (9:22 a.m.)

## Imperial Japanese Navy Vessels Present

* Aircraft Carriers
	+ IJN Zuikaku
* Battleships
	+ IJN Yamato
* Destroyers
	+ IJN Kamikaze
	+ IJN Yukikaze

## Allied Powers Naval Vessels Present

* Aircraft Carriers
	+ USS Enterprise (CV-6)
	+ USS Bataan (CVL-29)
	+ USS Cowpens (CVL-25)
	+ USS San Jacinto (CVL-30)
	+ HMS Ruler (D72)
	+ USS Salamaua (CVE-96)
	+ HMS Speaker (D90)
* Battleships
	+ USS New Mexico (BB-40)
	+ USS Mississippi (BB-41)
	+ USS Idaho (BB-42)
	+ USS Colorado (BB-45)
	+ USS West Virginia (BB-48)
	+ USS South Dakota (BB-57)
	+ USS Iowa (BB-61)
	+ USS Missouri (BB-63) (The ship on which the surrender was signed)
	+ HMS Duke of York (17)
	+ HMS King George V (41)
* Battlecruisers
	+ USS Constitution (CC-1)
	+ HMS Repulse (34)
* Heavy Cruisers
	+ USS Boston (CA-69)
	+ USS Chicago (CA-29)
	+ USS Quincy (CA-71)
	+ USS Saint Paul (CA-73)
	+ HMAS Shropshire (73)
* Light Cruisers
	+ USS Detroit (CL-8)
	+ HMNZS Gambia (48)
	+ HMAS Hobart (I63)
	+ HMS Newfoundland (C59)
	+ USS Oakland (CL-95)
	+ USS Pasadena (CL-65)
	+ USS San Diego (CL-53)
	+ USS San Juan (CL-54)
	+ USS Springfield (CL-66)
	+ USS Wilkes-Barre (CL-103)
* Destroyers
	+ USS Ault (DD-698)
	+ HMS Barfleur (D80)
	+ USS Benham (DD-796)
	+ USS Blue (DD-744)
	+ USS Buchanan (DD-484)
	+ USS Caperton (DD-650)
	+ USS Charles F. Hughes (DD-428)
	+ USS Clarence K. Bronson (DD-668)
	+ USS Cogswell (DD-651)
	+ USS Colahan (DD-658)
	+ USS Cotten (DD-669)
	+ USS Cushing (DD-797)
	+ USS De Haven (DD-727)
	+ USS Dortch (DD-670)
	+ USS Frank Knox (DD-742)
	+ USS Gatling (DD-671)
	+ USS Halsey Powell (DD-686)
	+ USS Healy (DD-672)
	+ USS Hilary P. Jones (DD-427)
	+ USS Ingersoll (DD-652)
	+ USS Kalk (DD-611)
	+ USS Knapp (DD-653)
	+ USS Lansdowne (DD-486)
	+ USS Lardner (DD-487)
	+ USS Madison (DD-425)
	+ USS Mayo (DD-422)
	+ HMAS Napier (G97)
	+ HMAS Nizam (G38)
	+ USS Nicholas (DD-449)
	+ USS Perkins (DD-877)
	+ HMS Quality (G62)
	+ USS Robert K. Huntington (DD-781)
	+ USS Southerland (DD-743)
	+ USS Stockham (DD-683)
	+ HMS Tartar (F43)
	+ USS Taylor (DD-468)
	+ HMS Teazer (R23)
	+ HMS Tenacious (R45)
	+ HMS Terpsichore (R33)
	+ USS Twining (DD-540)
	+ USS Uhlmann (DD-687)
	+ USS Wadleigh (DD-689)
	+ HMS Wager (R98)
	+ USS Waldron (DD-699)
	+ USS Wallace L. Lind (DD-703)
	+ HMAS Warramunga (I44)
	+ USS Wedderburn (DD-684)
	+ HMS Whelp (R37)
	+ HMS Wizard (R72)
	+ USS Wren (DD-568)
	+ USS Yarnall (DD-541)
* Destroyer Escorts
	+ USS Goss (DE-444)
	+ USS Kendall C. Campbell (DE-443)
	+ USS Lyman (DE-302)
	+ USS Major (DE-796)
	+ USS Roberts (DE-749)
	+ USS Ulvert M. Moore (DE-442)
	+ USS Waterman (DE-740)
	+ USS Weaver (DE-741)
	+ USS William Seiverling (DE-441)
	+ USS Charles Lawrence (DE-53)
	+ USS John L Williamson (DE-370)
* Frigates
	+ HMS Derg (K257)
	+ HMAS Gascoyne (K354)
	+ HMS Woodcock (U90)
* Other Vessels

## Appearances

* *The Greatest Generation* (first appearance)