Surrender of Japan

Surrender of Japan

The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced by Japanese Emperor Hirohito on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945. 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.

About Surrender of Japan in brief

Summary Surrender of JapanThe surrender of Imperial Japan was announced by Japanese Emperor Hirohito on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. 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 theirState of war. The Japanese had suffered a string of defeats for nearly two years in the South West Pacific, the Marianas campaign and the Philippines campaign. As a result of the losses, the Japanese Navy had ceased to be an effective fighting force. Following a series of raids on the Dutch East Indies, Japanese industry was destroyed. Production of coal, iron, steel, rubber, and other vital supplies was only a fraction of that before the war. Allied civilians and military personnel alike celebrated V-J Day. 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 Allies captured the nearby islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in the first half of 1945. Okinawa was to be a staging area for Operation Downfall, the Allied invasion of the Japanese Home Islands.

The Soviet Union began quietly redeploying its battle-hardened forces from the European theatre to the Far East in addition to divisions that had been stationed there since 1941, as a counterbalance to the Japanese Army. About forty million Kwantung submarines were deployed in the Pacific. In addition to the Allied submarine campaign, about forty million Japanese troops were stationed in the Kwantun Islands. In July 1944, following the loss of Saipan, General Hideki Tōjō was replaced as prime minister by General Kuniaki Koiso, who declared that the Philippines would be the site of the decisive battle. After the Japanese loss of the Philippines, Admiral Kantarō Suzuki in turn was replaced by Admiral Kantorō Suzuki. In the radio address, called the Jewel Voice Broadcast, he announced 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 August 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. The U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb, this time on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, on August 8, 1945, in accordance with the Yalta agreements, but in violation of the Soviet Japanese Neutrality Pact. Soon after midnight on August 9,1945, the Soviet Soviet Union invaded the Imperial Japan puppet state of Manchukuo.