HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The surrender of the
Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent form ...
in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
was announced by
Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( ...
Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...
on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the
Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
(IJN) had become incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. Together with the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
and
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
called for the
unconditional surrender An unconditional surrender is a surrender in which no guarantees are given to the surrendering party. It is often demanded with the threat of complete destruction, extermination or annihilation. In modern times, unconditional surrenders most ofte ...
of the Japanese armed forces in the
Potsdam Declaration The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, Uni ...
on 26 July 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 The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
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 Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...
and
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic ...
(in addition to
South Sakhalin Karafuto Prefecture ( ja, 樺太庁, ''Karafuto-chō''; russian: Префектура Карафуто, Prefektura Karafuto), commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a prefecture of Japan located in Sakhalin from 1907 to 1949. Karafuto became ter ...
and the
Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese language, Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakh ...
) in fulfillment of promises they had secretly made to the United States and the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
at the
Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
and
Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...
s. On 6 August 1945, at 8:15 AM local time, the United States detonated an
atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
over the Japanese city of
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui ...
. 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 8 August 1945, in accordance with the Yalta agreements, but in violation of the
Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact The , also known as the , was a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan signed on April 13, 1941, two years after the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese Border War. The agreement meant that for most of World War II ...
, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and soon after midnight on 9 August 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 is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...
. Following these events,
Emperor Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...
intervened and ordered the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to accept the terms the
Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
had set down in the
Potsdam Declaration The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, Uni ...
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 15 August announcing the surrender of Japan to the Allies. On 28 August, the
occupation of Japan Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States ...
led by the
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers was the title held by General Douglas MacArthur during the United States-led Allied occupation of Japan following World War II. It issued SCAP Directives (alias SCAPIN, SCAP Index Number) to the Japanese government, aiming to suppress its "milit ...
began. The surrender ceremony was held on 2 September, aboard the United States Navy battleship , at which officials from the
Japanese government The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary state, ...
signed the
Japanese Instrument of Surrender The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was the written agreement that formalized the surrender of the Empire of Japan, marking the end of hostilities in World War II. It was signed by representatives from the Empire of Japan and from the Allied ...
, thereby ending the hostilities. Allied
civilian Civilians under international humanitarian law are "persons who are not members of the armed forces" and they are not " combatants if they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". It is slightly different from a non-combatant ...
s and
military personnel Military personnel are members of the state's armed forces. Their roles, pay, and obligations differ according to their military branch (army, navy, marines, air force, space force, and coast guard), rank ( officer, non-commissioned office ...
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 The , also called the , re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and including World War II. It w ...
came into force on 28 April 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.


Background

By 1945, the Japanese had suffered a string of defeats for nearly two years in the
South West Pacific Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million as of ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
, the
Marianas campaign The Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, also known as Operation Forager, was an offensive launched by United States forces against Imperial Japanese forces in the Mariana Islands and Palau in the Pacific Ocean between June and November 1944 d ...
, and the Philippines campaign. In July 1944, following the loss of Saipan, General
Hideki Tōjō Hideki Tojo (, ', December 30, 1884 – December 23, 1948) was a Japanese politician, general of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), and convicted war criminal who served as prime minister of Japan and president of the Imperial Rule Assista ...
was replaced as
prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
by General
Kuniaki Koiso was a Japanese general in the Imperial Japanese Army, Governor-General of Korea and Prime Minister of Japan from 1944 to 1945. After Japan's defeat in World War II, he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment. Early l ...
, who declared that the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
would be the site of the decisive battle. After the Japanese loss of the Philippines, Koiso in turn was replaced by Admiral Kantarō Suzuki. The Allies captured the nearby islands of
Iwo Jima Iwo Jima (, also ), known in Japan as , is one of the Japanese Volcano Islands and lies south of the Bonin Islands. Together with other islands, they form the Ogasawara Archipelago. The highest point of Iwo Jima is Mount Suribachi at high. ...
and
Okinawa is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 Square kilometre, km2 (880 sq mi). ...
in the first half of 1945. Okinawa was to be a staging area for
Operation Downfall Operation Downfall was the proposed Allied plan for the invasion of the Japanese home islands near the end of World War II. The planned operation was canceled when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ...
, the Allied invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. Following Germany's defeat, the Soviet Union began quietly redeploying its battle-hardened forces from the European theatre to the Far East, in addition to about forty divisions that had been stationed there since 1941, as a counterbalance to the million-strong
Kwantung Army ''Kantō-gun'' , image = Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG , image_size = 300px , caption = Kwantung Army headquarters in Hsinking, Manchukuo , dates = April ...
. The Allied submarine campaign and the mining of Japanese coastal waters had largely destroyed the Japanese merchant fleet. With few natural resources, Japan was dependent on raw materials, particularly oil, imported from Manchuria and other parts of the East Asian mainland, and from the conquered territory in the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, whic ...
. The destruction of the Japanese merchant fleet, combined with the strategic bombing of Japanese industry, had wrecked Japan's war economy. Production of coal, iron, steel, rubber, and other vital supplies was only a fraction of that before the war. As a result of the losses it had suffered, the
Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
(IJN) had ceased to be an effective fighting force. Following a series of raids on the Japanese shipyard at Kure, the only major warships in somewhat fighting order were six aircraft carriers, four cruisers, and one battleship, of which many were heavily damaged and none could be fueled adequately. Although 19 destroyers and 38 submarines were still operational, their use was also limited by the lack of fuel..


Defense preparations

Faced with the prospect of an invasion of the Home Islands, starting with
Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surround ...
, and the prospect of a Soviet invasion of Manchuria—Japan's last source of natural resources—the War Journal of the Imperial Headquarters concluded in 1944: As a final attempt to stop the Allied advances, the Japanese Imperial High Command planned an all-out defense of Kyūshū codenamed
Operation Ketsugō Operation Downfall was the proposed Allied plan for the invasion of the Japanese home islands near the end of World War II. The planned operation was canceled when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ...
. This was to be a radical departure from the
defense in depth Defence in depth (also known as deep defence or elastic defence) is a military strategy that seeks to delay rather than prevent the advance of an attacker, buying time and causing additional casualties by yielding space. Rather than defeating ...
plans used in the invasions of
Peleliu Peleliu (or Beliliou) is an island in the island nation of Palau. Peleliu, along with two small islands to its northeast, forms one of the sixteen states of Palau. The island is notable as the location of the Battle of Peleliu in World War II. H ...
,
Iwo Jima Iwo Jima (, also ), known in Japan as , is one of the Japanese Volcano Islands and lies south of the Bonin Islands. Together with other islands, they form the Ogasawara Archipelago. The highest point of Iwo Jima is Mount Suribachi at high. ...
, and
Okinawa is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 Square kilometre, km2 (880 sq mi). ...
. Instead, everything was staked on the beachhead; more than 3,000
kamikaze , officially , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending ...
s would be sent to attack the amphibious transports before troops and cargo were disembarked on the beach. If this did not drive the Allies away, they planned to send another 3,500 kamikazes along with 5,000 ''Shin'yō'' suicide motorboats and the remaining destroyers and submarines—"the last of the Navy's operating fleet"—to the beach. If the Allies had fought through this and successfully landed on Kyūshū, 3,000 planes would have been left to defend the remaining islands, although Kyūshū would be "defended to the last" regardless. The strategy of making a last stand at Kyūshū was based on the assumption of continued Soviet neutrality.


Supreme Council for the Direction of the War

Japanese policy-making centered on the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War (created in 1944 by earlier Prime Minister
Kuniaki Koiso was a Japanese general in the Imperial Japanese Army, Governor-General of Korea and Prime Minister of Japan from 1944 to 1945. After Japan's defeat in World War II, he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment. Early l ...
), the so-called "Big Six"—the
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
,
Minister of Foreign Affairs A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between co ...
, Minister of the Army,
Minister of the Navy Minister of the Navy may refer to: * Minister of the Navy (France) * Minister of the Navy (Italy) * Minister of the Navy (Japan) * Minister of the Navy (Netherlands) * Minister of the Navy (Spain) * Minister of the Navy (Turkey) * Minister of ...
, Chief of the
Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
General Staff, and Chief of the
Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...
General Staff. At the formation of the Suzuki government in April 1945, the council's membership consisted of: * Prime Minister: Admiral Kantarō Suzuki * Minister of Foreign Affairs: Shigenori Tōgō * Minister of the Army: General
Korechika Anami was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II who was War Minister during the surrender of Japan. Early life and career Anami was born in Taketa city in Ōita Prefecture, where his father was a senior bureaucrat in the Home M ...
* Minister of the Navy: Admiral
Mitsumasa Yonai was a Japanese general and politician. He served as admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, Minister of the Navy, and Prime Minister of Japan in 1940. Early life and career Yonai was born on 2 March 1880, in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, the firs ...
* Chief of the Army General Staff: General Yoshijirō Umezu * Chief of the Navy General Staff: Admiral
Koshirō Oikawa was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy and Naval Minister during World War II. Biography Oikawa was born into a wealthy family in rural Koshi County, Niigata Prefecture, but was raised in Morioka city, Iwate prefecture in northern Ja ...
(later replaced by Admiral Soemu Toyoda) All of these positions were nominally appointed by the Emperor and their holders were answerable directly to him. Nevertheless, Japanese civil law from 1936 required that the Army and Navy ministers had to be active duty flag officers from those respective services while Japanese military law from long before that time prohibited serving officers from accepting political offices without first obtaining permission from their respective service headquarters which, if and when granted, could be rescinded at any time. Thus, the Japanese Army and Navy effectively held a legal right to nominate (or refuse to nominate) their respective ministers, in addition to the effective right to order their respective ministers to resign their posts. Strict constitutional convention dictated (as it technically still does today) that a prospective Prime Minister could not assume the premiership, nor could an incumbent Prime Minister remain in office, if he could not fill all of the cabinet posts. Thus, the Army and Navy could prevent the formation of undesirable governments, or by resignation bring about the collapse of an existing government. Emperor
Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...
and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Kōichi Kido also were present at some meetings, following the Emperor's wishes. As
Iris Chang Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968November 9, 2004) was a Chinese American journalist, author of historical books and political activist. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, '' The Rape of Nanking'', and ...
reports, "... the Japanese deliberately destroyed, hid or falsified most of their secret wartime documents before General MacArthur arrived."


Japanese leadership divisions

For the most part, Suzuki's military-dominated cabinet favored continuing the war. For the Japanese, surrender was unthinkable—Japan had never been successfully invaded or lost a war in its history. Only Mitsumasa Yonai, the Navy minister, was known to desire an early end to the war. According to historian Richard B. Frank: After the war, Suzuki and others from his government and their apologists claimed they were secretly working towards peace, and could not publicly advocate it. They cite the Japanese concept of '' haragei''—"the art of hidden and invisible technique"—to justify the dissonance between their public actions and alleged behind-the-scenes work. However, many historians reject this. Robert J. C. Butow wrote: Japanese leaders had always envisioned a negotiated settlement to the war. Their prewar planning expected a rapid expansion and consolidation, an eventual conflict with the United States, and finally a settlement in which they would be able to retain at least some new territory they had conquered. By 1945, Japan's leaders were in agreement that the war was going badly, but they disagreed over the best means to negotiate its end. There were two camps: the so-called "peace" camp favored a diplomatic initiative to persuade
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
, the leader of the Soviet Union, to mediate a settlement between the Allies and Japan; and the hardliners who favored fighting one last "decisive" battle that would inflict so many casualties on the Allies that they would be willing to offer more lenient terms. Both approaches were based on Japan's experience in the
Russo–Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
, forty years earlier, which consisted of a series of costly but largely indecisive battles, followed by the decisive naval
Battle of Tsushima The Battle of Tsushima (Japanese:対馬沖海戦, Tsushimaoki''-Kaisen'', russian: Цусимское сражение, ''Tsusimskoye srazheniye''), also known as the Battle of Tsushima Strait and the Naval Battle of Sea of Japan (Japanese: 日 ...
. In February 1945, Prince
Fumimaro Konoe Prince was a Japanese politician and prime minister. During his tenure, he presided over the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 and the breakdown in relations with the United States, which ultimately culminated in Japan's entry into World W ...
gave Emperor Hirohito a memorandum analyzing the situation, and told him that if the war continued, the imperial family might be in greater danger from an internal revolution than from defeat. According to the diary of
Grand Chamberlain A chamberlain (Medieval Latin: ''cambellanus'' or ''cambrerius'', with charge of treasury ''camerarius'') is a senior royal official in charge of managing a royal household. Historically, the chamberlain superintends the arrangement of domestic ...
Hisanori Fujita was a Japanese admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, court official and Shinto priest. After retiring from active service, he served as Chief Priest of Meiji Shrine and the Grand Chamberlain to Emperor Shōwa during World War II. Biography ...
, the Emperor, looking for a decisive battle (), replied that it was premature to seek peace "unless we make one more military gain". Also in February, Japan's treaty division wrote about Allied policies towards Japan regarding "unconditional surrender, occupation, disarmament, elimination of militarism, democratic reforms, punishment of war criminals, and the status of the emperor." Allied-imposed disarmament, Allied punishment of Japanese war criminals, and especially occupation and removal of the Emperor, were not acceptable to the Japanese leadership. On 5 April, the Soviet Union gave the required 12 months' notice that it would not renew the five-year
Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact The , also known as the , was a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan signed on April 13, 1941, two years after the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese Border War. The agreement meant that for most of World War II ...
Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact
13 April 1941. (
Avalon Project The Avalon Project is a digital library of documents relating to law, history and diplomacy. The project is part of the Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library. The project contains online electronic copies of documents dating back to the ...
at
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
)
Declaration Regarding Mongolia
13 April 1941. (
Avalon Project The Avalon Project is a digital library of documents relating to law, history and diplomacy. The project is part of the Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library. The project contains online electronic copies of documents dating back to the ...
at
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
)
(which had been signed in 1941 following the
Nomonhan Incident The Battles of Khalkhin Gol (russian: Бои на Халхин-Голе; mn, Халхын голын байлдаан) were the decisive engagements of the undeclared Soviet–Japanese border conflicts involving the Soviet Union, Mongolia, Jap ...
).
Soviet Denunciation of the Pact with Japan
'. Avalon Project, Yale Law School. Text from United States Department of State Bulletin Vol. XII, No. 305, 29 April 1945. Retrieved 22 February 2009.
Unknown to the Japanese, at the
Tehran Conference The Tehran Conference ( codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embass ...
in November–December 1943, it had been agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan once Germany was defeated. At the
Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...
in February 1945, the United States had made substantial concessions to the Soviets to secure a promise that they would declare war on Japan within three months of the surrender of Germany. Although the five-year Neutrality Pact did not expire until 5 April 1946, the announcement caused the Japanese great concern, because Japan had amassed its forces in the South to repel the inevitable US attack, thus leaving its Northern islands vulnerable to Soviet invasion."Molotov's note was neither a declaration of war nor, necessarily, of intent to go to war. Legally, the treaty still had a year to run after the notice of cancellation. But the Foreign Commissar's tone suggested that this technicality might be brushed aside at Russia's convenience."
So Sorry, Mr. Sato
. ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
'', 16 April 1945.
Soviet Foreign Minister
Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
, in Moscow, and
Yakov Malik Yakov Alexandrovich Malik (russian: Яков Александрович Малик) (11 February 1980) was a Soviet diplomat. Biography Born in Ostroverkhovka village, Kharkov Governorate, Malik was educated at Kharkiv Institute of National ...
, Soviet ambassador in Tokyo, went to great lengths to assure the Japanese that "the period of the Pact's validity has not ended". At a series of high-level meetings in May, the Big Six first seriously discussed ending the war, but none of them on terms that would have been acceptable to the Allies. Because anyone openly supporting Japanese surrender risked assassination by zealous army officers, the meetings were closed to anyone except the Big Six, the Emperor, and the Privy Seal. No second or third-echelon officers could attend. At these meetings, despite the dispatches from Japanese ambassador
Satō is the most common Japanese surname, often romanized as Sato, Satoh or Satou. A less common variant is . Notable people with the surname include: *, Japanese actress and voice actress *, Japanese actress *, Japanese judoka *, Japanese writer * ...
in Moscow, only Foreign Minister Tōgō realized that Roosevelt and Churchill might have already made concessions to Stalin to bring the Soviets into the war against Japan. Tōgō had been outspoken about ending the war quickly. As a result of these meetings, he was authorized to approach the Soviet Union, seeking to maintain its neutrality, or (despite the very remote probability) to form an alliance. In keeping with the custom of a new government declaring its purposes, following the May meetings the Army staff produced a document, "The Fundamental Policy to Be Followed Henceforth in the Conduct of the War," which stated that the Japanese people would fight to extinction rather than surrender. This policy was adopted by the Big Six on 6 June. (Tōgō opposed it, while the other five supported it.) Documents submitted by Suzuki at the same meeting suggested that, in the diplomatic overtures to the USSR, Japan adopt the following approach: On 9 June, the Emperor's confidant Marquis Kōichi Kido wrote a "Draft Plan for Controlling the Crisis Situation," warning that by the end of the year Japan's ability to wage modern war would be extinguished and the government would be unable to contain civil unrest. "... We cannot be sure we will not share the fate of Germany and be reduced to adverse circumstances under which we will not attain even our supreme object of safeguarding the Imperial Household and preserving the national polity." Kido proposed that the Emperor take action, by offering to end the war on "very generous terms." Kido proposed that Japan withdraw from the formerly European colonies it had occupied provided they were granted independence and also proposed that Japan recognize the independence of the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
, which Japan had already mostly lost control of and to which it was well known that the U.S. had long been planning to grant independence. Finally, Kido proposed that Japan disarm provided this not occur under Allied supervision and that Japan for a time be "content with minimum defense." Kido's proposal did not contemplate Allied occupation of Japan, prosecution of war criminals or substantial change in Japan's system of government, nor did Kido suggest that Japan might be willing to consider relinquishing territories acquired prior to 1937 including
Formosa Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is an island country located in East Asia. The main island of Taiwan, formerly known in the Western political circles, press and literature as Formosa, makes up 99% of the land area of the territori ...
,
Karafuto Karafuto Prefecture ( ja, 樺太庁, ''Karafuto-chō''; russian: Префектура Карафуто, Prefektura Karafuto), commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a prefecture of Japan located in Sakhalin from 1907 to 1949. Karafuto became ter ...
,
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic ...
, the formerly
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
islands in the Pacific and even
Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 after the Japanese ...
. With the Emperor's authorization, Kido approached several members of the Supreme Council, the "Big Six." Tōgō was very supportive. Suzuki and Admiral
Mitsumasa Yonai was a Japanese general and politician. He served as admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, Minister of the Navy, and Prime Minister of Japan in 1940. Early life and career Yonai was born on 2 March 1880, in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, the firs ...
, the Navy minister, were both cautiously supportive; each wondered what the other thought. General
Korechika Anami was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II who was War Minister during the surrender of Japan. Early life and career Anami was born in Taketa city in Ōita Prefecture, where his father was a senior bureaucrat in the Home M ...
, the Army minister, was ambivalent, insisting that diplomacy must wait until "after the United States has sustained heavy losses" in
Operation Ketsugō Operation Downfall was the proposed Allied plan for the invasion of the Japanese home islands near the end of World War II. The planned operation was canceled when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ...
. In June, the Emperor lost confidence in the chances of achieving a military victory. The
Battle of Okinawa The , codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army (USA) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) forces against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The initial invasion of ...
was lost, and he learned of the weakness of the Japanese army in China, of the
Kwantung Army ''Kantō-gun'' , image = Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG , image_size = 300px , caption = Kwantung Army headquarters in Hsinking, Manchukuo , dates = April ...
in Manchuria, of the navy, and of the army defending the Home Islands. The Emperor received a report by
Prince Higashikuni General was a Japanese imperial prince, a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and the 30th Prime Minister of Japan from 17 August 1945 to 9 October 1945, a period of 54 days. An uncle-in-law of Emperor Hirohito twice over, Prince Hi ...
from which he concluded that "it was not just the coast defense; the divisions reserved to engage in the decisive battle also did not have sufficient numbers of weapons." According to the Emperor: On 22 June, the Emperor summoned the Big Six to a meeting. Unusually, he spoke first: "I desire that concrete plans to end the war, unhampered by existing policy, be speedily studied and that efforts made to implement them." It was agreed to solicit Soviet aid in ending the war. Other neutral nations, such as
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
,
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...
, and the
Vatican City Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—' * german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ') * pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—' * pt, Cidade do Vati ...
, were known to be willing to play a role in making peace, but they were so small they were believed unable to do more than deliver the Allies' terms of surrender and Japan's acceptance or rejection. The Japanese hoped that the Soviet Union could be persuaded to act as an agent for Japan in negotiations with the United States and Britain.


Manhattan Project

After several years of preliminary research, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had authorized the initiation of a massive, top-secret project to build
atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
s in 1942. The
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
, under the authority of Major General Leslie R. Groves Jr. employed hundreds of thousands of American workers at dozens of secret facilities across the United States, and on 16 July 1945, the first prototype weapon was detonated during the Trinity nuclear test. As the project neared its conclusion, American planners began to consider the use of the bomb. In keeping with the Allies' overall strategy of securing final victory in Europe first, it had initially been assumed that the first atomic weapons would be allocated for use against Germany. However, by this time it was increasingly obvious that Germany would be defeated before any bombs would be ready for use. Groves formed a committee that met in April and May 1945 to draw up a list of targets. One of the primary criteria was that the target cities must not have been damaged by conventional bombing. This would allow for an accurate assessment of the damage done by the atomic bomb. The targeting committee's list included 18 Japanese cities. At the top of the list were
Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...
,
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui ...
,
Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...
, Kokura, and Niigata. Ultimately, Kyoto was removed from the list at the insistence of
Secretary of War The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the ...
Henry L. Stimson Henry Lewis Stimson (September 21, 1867 – October 20, 1950) was an American statesman, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. Over his long career, he emerged as a leading figure in U.S. foreign policy by serving in both Republican and ...
, who had visited the city on his honeymoon and knew of its cultural and historical significance. Although the previous
Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...
,
Henry A. Wallace Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was an American politician, journalist, farmer, and businessman who served as the 33rd vice president of the United States, the 11th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and the 10th U.S. ...
, had been involved in the Manhattan Project since the beginning, his successor, Harry S. Truman, was not briefed on the project by Stimson until 23 April 1945, eleven days after he became president on Roosevelt's death on 12 April 1945. On 2 May 1945, Truman approved the formation of the
Interim Committee The Interim Committee was a secret high-level group created in May 1945 by United States Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson at the urging of leaders of the Manhattan Project and with the approval of President Harry S. Truman to advise on m ...
, an advisory group that would report on the atomic bomb. It consisted of Stimson, James F. Byrnes,
George L. Harrison George Leslie Harrison (January 26, 1887 – March 5, 1958) was an American banker, insurance executive and advisor to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson during World War II. Early life and education Harrison was born in San Francisco, California ...
,
Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all warti ...
,
James Bryant Conant James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978) was an American chemist, a transformative President of Harvard University, and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard in 1916 ...
,
Karl Taylor Compton Karl Taylor Compton (September 14, 1887 – June 22, 1954) was a prominent American physicist and president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1930 to 1948. The early years (1887–1912) Karl Taylor Compton was born in ...
, William L. Clayton, and Ralph Austin Bard, advised by a Scientific Panel composed of Robert Oppenheimer,
Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" an ...
,
Ernest Lawrence Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an American nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation fo ...
, and
Arthur Compton Arthur Holly Compton (September 10, 1892 – March 15, 1962) was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for his 1923 discovery of the Compton effect, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radia ...
. In a 1 June report, the Committee concluded that the bomb should be used as soon as possible against a war plant surrounded by workers' homes and that no warning or demonstration should be given. The committee's mandate did not include the use of the bomb—its use upon completion was presumed. Following a protest by scientists involved in the project, in the form of the
Franck Report The Franck Report of June 1945 was a document signed by several prominent nuclear physicists recommending that the United States not use the atomic bomb as a weapon to prompt the surrender of Japan in World War II. The report was named for James ...
, the Committee re-examined the use of the bomb, posing the question to the Scientific Panel of whether a "demonstration" of the bomb should be used before actual battlefield deployment. In a 21 June meeting, the Scientific Panel affirmed that there was no alternative. Truman played very little role in these discussions. At Potsdam, he was enthralled by the successful report of the Trinity test, and those around him noticed a positive change in his attitude, believing the bomb gave him leverage with both Japan and the Soviet Union. Other than backing Stimson's play to remove Kyoto from the target list (as the military continued to push for it as a target), he was otherwise not involved in any decision-making regarding the bomb, contrary to later retellings of the story (including Truman's own embellishments).


Proposed invasion

On 18 June 1945, Truman met with the Chief of Army Staff General
George Marshall George Catlett Marshall Jr. (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Chief of Staff of the US Army under Pre ...
, Air Force General Henry Arnold, Chief of Staff Admiral William Leahy and Admiral
Ernest King Ernest Joseph King (23 November 1878 – 25 June 1956) was an American naval officer who served as Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (COMINCH) and Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) during World War II. As COMINCH-CNO, he directed the U ...
, Navy Secretary
James Forrestal James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense. Forrestal came from a very strict middle-class Irish Catholic fami ...
, Secretary for War Henry Stimson and Assistant Secretary for War John McCloy to discuss
Operation Olympic Operation Downfall was the proposed Allied plan for the invasion of the Japanese home islands near the end of World War II. The planned operation was canceled when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ...
, part of a plan to invade the Japanese home islands. General Marshall supported the entry of the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...
, believing that doing so would cause Japan to capitulate. McCloy had told Stimson that there were no more Japanese cities to be bombed and wanted to explore other options of bringing about a surrender. He suggested a political solution and asked about warning the Japanese of the atomic bomb. James Byrnes, who would become the new Secretary of State on 3 July, wanted to use it as quickly as possible without warning and without letting the Soviets know beforehand.


Soviet Union negotiation attempts

On 30 June, Tōgō told
Naotake Satō was a Japanese diplomat and politician. He was born in Osaka, graduated from the Tokyo Higher Commercial School (東京高等商業学校, ''Tōkyō Kōtō Shōgyō Gakkō'', now Hitotsubashi University) in 1904, attended the consul course of ...
, Japan's ambassador in Moscow, to try to establish "firm and lasting relations of friendship." Satō was to discuss the status of Manchuria and "any matter the Russians would like to bring up." Well aware of the overall situation and cognizant of their promises to the Allies, the Soviets responded with delaying tactics to encourage the Japanese without promising anything. Satō finally met with Soviet Foreign Minister
Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
on 11 July, but without result. On 12 July, Tōgō directed Satō to tell the Soviets that: The Emperor proposed sending Prince Konoe as a special envoy, although he would be unable to reach Moscow before the
Potsdam Conference The Potsdam Conference (german: Potsdamer Konferenz) was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris P ...
. Satō advised Tōgō that in reality, "unconditional surrender or terms closely equivalent thereto" was all that Japan could expect. Moreover, in response to Molotov's requests for specific proposals, Satō suggested that Tōgō's messages were not "clear about the views of the Government and the Military with regard to the termination of the war," thus questioning whether Tōgō's initiative was supported by the key elements of Japan's power structure. On 17 July, Tōgō responded: In reply, Satō clarified: On 21 July, speaking in the name of the cabinet, Tōgō repeated: American cryptographers had broken most of Japan's codes, including the Purple code used by the Japanese Foreign Office to encode high-level diplomatic correspondence. As a result, messages between
Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
and Japan's embassies were provided to Allied policy-makers nearly as quickly as to the intended recipients. Fearing heavy casualties, the Allies wished for Soviet entry in the
Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vas ...
at the earliest possible date. Roosevelt had secured Stalin's promise at
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metr ...
, which was re-affirmed at
Yalta Yalta (: Я́лта) is a resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Cri ...
. That outcome was greatly feared in Japan.


Soviet intentions

Security concerns dominated Soviet decisions concerning the Far East. Chief among these was gaining unrestricted access to the
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...
. The year-round ice-free areas of the Soviet Pacific coastline—
Vladivostok Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, ...
in particular—could be blockaded by air and sea from
Sakhalin island Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, r=Sakhalín, p=səxɐˈlʲin; ja, 樺太 ''Karafuto''; zh, c=, p=Kùyèdǎo, s=库页岛, t=庫頁島; Manchu: ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ, ''Sahaliyan''; Orok: Бугата на̄, ''Bugata nā''; Nivkh ...
and the
Kurile Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...
. Acquiring these territories, thus guaranteeing free access to the
Soya Strait Soya may refer to: Food * Soya bean, or soybean, a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean * Soya sauce, see soy sauce, a fermented sauce made from soybeans, roasted grain, water and salt Places * Sōya District, ...
, was their primary objective. Secondary objectives were leases for the
Chinese Eastern Railway The Chinese Eastern Railway or CER (, russian: Китайско-Восточная железная дорога, or , ''Kitaysko-Vostochnaya Zheleznaya Doroga'' or ''KVZhD''), is the historical name for a railway system in Northeast China (als ...
,
Southern Manchuria Railway The South Manchuria Railway ( ja, 南満州鉄道, translit=Minamimanshū Tetsudō; ), officially , Mantetsu ( ja, 満鉄, translit=Mantetsu) or Mantie () for short, was a large of the Empire of Japan whose primary function was the operatio ...
,
Dairen Dalian () is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China. Located on the ...
, and Port Arthur. To this end, Stalin and Molotov strung out the negotiations with the Japanese, giving them false hope of a Soviet-mediated peace. At the same time, in their dealings with the United States and Britain, the Soviets insisted on strict adherence to the Cairo Declaration, re-affirmed at the Yalta Conference, that the Allies would not accept separate or conditional peace with Japan. The Japanese would have to surrender unconditionally to all the Allies. To prolong the war, the Soviets opposed any attempt to weaken this requirement. This would give the Soviets time to complete the transfer of their troops from the Western Front to the Far East, and conquer
Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...
,
Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
, northern
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic ...
,
South Sakhalin Karafuto Prefecture ( ja, 樺太庁, ''Karafuto-chō''; russian: Префектура Карафуто, Prefektura Karafuto), commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a prefecture of Japan located in Sakhalin from 1907 to 1949. Karafuto became ter ...
, the
Kuriles The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in th ...
, and possibly
Hokkaidō is Japan, Japan's Japanese archipelago, second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost Prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own List of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; th ...
(starting with a landing at
Rumoi is a city located in Rumoi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the capital of Rumoi Subprefecture. As of September 2016, the city has an estimated population of 22,242 and the density of 75 persons per km2. The total area is 297.44  ...
).


Events at Potsdam

The leaders of the major Allied powers met at the
Potsdam Conference The Potsdam Conference (german: Potsdamer Konferenz) was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris P ...
from 16 July to 2 August 1945. The participants were the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
, and the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, represented by Stalin,
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
(later
Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...
), and Truman respectively.


Negotiations

Although the Potsdam Conference was mainly concerned with European affairs, the war against Japan was also discussed in detail. Truman learned of the successful Trinity test early in the conference and shared this information with the British delegation. The successful test caused the American delegation to reconsider the necessity and wisdom of Soviet participation, for which the U.S. had lobbied hard at the
Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
and
Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...
s. High on the United States' list of priorities was shortening the war and reducing American casualties—Soviet intervention seemed likely to do both, but at the cost of possibly allowing the Soviets to capture territory beyond that which had been promised to them at Tehran and Yalta, and causing a postwar division of Japan similar to that which had occurred in Germany. In dealing with Stalin, Truman decided to give the Soviet leader vague hints about the existence of a powerful new weapon without going into details. However, the other Allies were unaware that Soviet intelligence had penetrated the Manhattan Project in its early stages, so Stalin already knew of the existence of the atomic bomb but did not appear impressed by its potential.


The Potsdam Declaration

It was decided to issue a statement, the
Potsdam Declaration The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, Uni ...
, defining "Unconditional Surrender" and clarifying what it meant for the position of the emperor and for Hirohito personally. The American and British governments strongly disagreed on this point—the United States wanted to abolish the position and possibly try him as a war criminal, while the British wanted to retain the position, perhaps with Hirohito still reigning. Furthermore, although it would not initially be a party to the declaration, the Soviet government also had to be consulted since it would be expected to endorse it upon entering the war. Assuring the retention of the emperor would change the Allied policy of unconditional surrender and necessitated consent from Stalin. The American Secretary of State James Byrnes, however, wanted to keep the Soviets out of the Pacific war as much as possible and persuaded Truman to delete any such assurances. The Potsdam Declaration went through many drafts until a version acceptable to all was found. On 26 July, the United States, Britain and China released the Potsdam Declaration announcing the terms for Japan's surrender, with the warning, "We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay." For Japan, the terms of the declaration specified: * the elimination "for all time fthe authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest" * the occupation of "points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies" * that the "Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of
Honshū , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island sepa ...
,
Hokkaidō is Japan, Japan's Japanese archipelago, second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost Prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own List of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; th ...
,
Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surround ...
,
Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It is long and between wide. It has a population of 3.8 million (, 3.1%). It is south of Honshu and northeast of Kyushu. Shikoku's ancient names include ''Iyo-no-futana-shima'' (), '' ...
and such minor islands as we determine." As had been announced in the Cairo Declaration in 1943, Japan was to be reduced to her pre-1894 territory and stripped of her pre-war empire including
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic ...
and
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...
, as well as all her recent conquests. * that " e Japanese
military forces A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinc ...
, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives." * that " do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners." On the other hand, the declaration stated that: * "The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people.
Freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental
human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
shall be established." * "Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those which would enable her to rearm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of, raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted." * "The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established, in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people, a peacefully inclined and responsible government." The only use of the term "
unconditional surrender An unconditional surrender is a surrender in which no guarantees are given to the surrendering party. It is often demanded with the threat of complete destruction, extermination or annihilation. In modern times, unconditional surrenders most ofte ...
" came at the end of the declaration: * "We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction." Contrary to what had been intended at its conception, the Declaration made no mention of the Emperor at all. Secretary of State
Joseph Grew Joseph Clark Grew (May 27, 1880 – May 25, 1965) was an American career diplomat and Foreign Service officer. He is best known as the ambassador to Japan from 1932 to 1941 and as a high official in the State Department in Washington from 1944 to ...
had advocated for retaining the emperor as a constitutional monarch. He hoped that preserving Hirohito's central role could facilitate an orderly capitulation of all Japanese troops in the Pacific theatre. Without it, securing a surrender could be difficult. Navy Secretary
James Forrestal James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense. Forrestal came from a very strict middle-class Irish Catholic fami ...
and other officials shared the view. Allied intentions on issues of utmost importance to the Japanese, including whether Hirohito was to be regarded as one of those who had "misled the people of Japan" or even a war criminal, or alternatively, whether the Emperor might become part of a "peacefully inclined and responsible government" were thus left unstated. The "prompt and utter destruction" clause has been interpreted as a veiled warning about American possession of the atomic bomb (which had been tested successfully on the first day of the conference). On the other hand, the declaration also made specific references to the devastation that had been wrought upon Germany in the closing stages of the European war. To contemporary readers on both sides who were not yet aware of the atomic bomb's existence, it was easy to interpret the conclusion of the declaration simply as a threat to bring similar destruction upon Japan using conventional weapons.


Japanese reaction

On 27 July, the Japanese government considered how to respond to the Declaration. The four military members of the Big Six wanted to reject it, but Tōgō, acting under the mistaken impression that the Soviet government had no prior knowledge of its contents, persuaded the cabinet not to do so until he could get a reaction from Moscow. The cabinet decided to publish the declaration without comment for the time being. In a telegram,
Shun'ichi Kase was a Japanese diplomat both during and after World War II. Shun'ichi Kase was a secretary to Japanese Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka in 1941. Then he was chargé d’affaires in Italy, as of 1943. Subsequently, he served as Japanese Amba ...
, Japan's ambassador to Switzerland, observed that "unconditional surrender" applied only to the military and not to the government or the people, and he pleaded that it should be understood that the careful language of Potsdam appeared "to have occasioned a great deal of thought" on the part of the signatory governments—"they seem to have taken pains to save face for us on various points." The next day, Japanese newspapers reported that the Declaration, the text of which had been broadcast and dropped by leaflet into Japan, had been rejected. In an attempt to manage public perception, Prime Minister Suzuki met with the press, and stated: Chief Cabinet Secretary
Hisatsune Sakomizu was a Japanese government official and politician before, during and after World War II. He is well known for serving as the chief secretary to Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki's Cabinet (April–August 1945). He was ordered by Suzuki to inves ...
had advised Suzuki to use the expression . Its meaning is ambiguous and can range from "refusing to comment on" to "ignoring (by keeping silence)".Kenkyusha. 2004.
Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary First published in 1918, has long been the largest and most authoritative Japanese-English dictionary. Translators, scholars, and specialists who use the Japanese language affectionately refer to this dictionary as the ''Green Goddess'' or ('' ...
5th ed.
What was intended by Suzuki has been the subject of debate. Tōgō later said that the making of such a statement violated the cabinet's decision to withhold comment. On 30 July, Ambassador Satō wrote that Stalin was probably talking to Roosevelt and Churchill about his dealings with Japan, and he wrote: "There is no alternative but immediate unconditional surrender if we are to prevent Russia's participation in the war." On 2 August, Tōgō wrote to Satō: "it should not be difficult for you to realize that ... our time to proceed with arrangements of ending the war before the enemy lands on the Japanese mainland is limited, on the other hand it is difficult to decide on concrete peace conditions here at home all at once."


Hiroshima, Manchuria, and Nagasaki


6 August: Hiroshima

On 6 August at 8:15 AM local time, the ''
Enola Gay The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it ...
'', a
Boeing B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...
piloted by Colonel
Paul Tibbets Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. (23 February 1915 – 1 November 2007) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. He is best known as the aircraft captain who flew the B-29 Superfortress known as the ''Enola Gay'' (named after his moth ...
, dropped an atomic bomb (code-named
Little Boy "Little Boy" was the type of atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II, making it the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ''Enola Gay'' p ...
by the U.S.) on the city of
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui ...
in southwest Honshū. Throughout the day, confused reports reached Tokyo that Hiroshima had been the target of an air raid, which had leveled the city with a "blinding flash and violent blast". Later that day, they received U.S. President Truman's broadcast announcing the first use of an
atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
, and promising: The Japanese Army and Navy had their own independent atomic-bomb programs and therefore the Japanese understood enough to know how very difficult building it would be. Therefore, many Japanese and in particular the military members of the government refused to believe the United States had built an atomic bomb, and the Japanese military ordered their own independent tests to determine the cause of Hiroshima's destruction. Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, argued that even if the United States had made one, they could not have many more. American strategists, having anticipated a reaction like Toyoda's, planned to drop a second bomb shortly after the first, to convince the Japanese that the U.S. had a large supply.


9 August: Soviet invasion and Nagasaki

At 04:00 on 9 August word reached Tokyo that the Soviet Union had broken the Neutrality Pact, declared war on Japan,Soviet Declaration of War on Japan
8 August 1945. (
Avalon Project The Avalon Project is a digital library of documents relating to law, history and diplomacy. The project is part of the Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library. The project contains online electronic copies of documents dating back to the ...
at
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
)
subscribed to the Potsdam Declaration and launched an invasion of Manchuria. These "twin shocks"—the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the Soviet entry—had immediate profound effects on Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki and Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō, who concurred that the government must end the war at once. However, the senior leadership of the
Japanese Army The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force ( ja, 陸上自衛隊, Rikujō Jieitai), , also referred to as the Japanese Army, is the land warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Created on July 1, 1954, it is the largest of the three service b ...
took the news in stride, grossly underestimating the scale of the attack. With the support of Minister of War Anami, they started preparing to impose
martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Martia ...
on the nation, to stop anyone attempting to make peace.
Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...
told Kido to "quickly control the situation" because "the Soviet Union has declared war and today began hostilities against us." The Supreme Council met at 10:30. Suzuki, who had just come from a meeting with the Emperor, said it was impossible to continue the war. Tōgō said that they could accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, but they needed a guarantee of the Emperor's position. Navy Minister Yonai said that they had to make some diplomatic proposal—they could no longer afford to wait for better circumstances. In the middle of the meeting, shortly after 11:00, news arrived that
Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...
, on the west coast of Kyūshū, had been hit by a second atomic bomb (called "
Fat Man "Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) is the codename for the type of nuclear bomb the United States detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the fir ...
" by the United States). By the time the meeting ended, the Big Six had split 3–3. Suzuki, Tōgō, and Admiral Yonai favored Tōgō's one additional condition to Potsdam, while General Anami, General Umezu, and Admiral Toyoda insisted on three further terms that modified Potsdam: that Japan handle their own disarmament, that Japan deal with any Japanese war criminals, and that there be no occupation of Japan. Following the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Truman issued another statement:


Discussions of surrender

The full Japanese cabinet met at 14:30 on 9 August, and spent most of the day debating surrender. As the Big Six had done, the cabinet split, with neither Tōgō's position nor Anami's attracting a majority. Anami told the other cabinet ministers that under torture a captured American P-51 Mustang fighter pilot,
Marcus McDilda Lieutenant Marcus McDilda was an American P-51 fighter pilot who was shot down over Osaka and captured by the Japanese on 8 August 1945, two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Capture and confession After his capture, McDilda was para ...
, had told his interrogators that the United States possessed a stockpile of 100 atom bombs and that Tokyo and Kyoto would be destroyed "in the next few days". In reality the United States would not have had a third bomb ready for use until around 19 August, and a fourth in September. However the Japanese leadership had no way to know the size of the United States' stockpile, and feared the United States might have the capacity not just to devastate individual cities, but to wipe out the
Japanese people The are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago."人類学上は,旧石器時代あるいは縄文時代以来,現在の北海道〜沖縄諸島(南西諸島)に住んだ集団を祖先にもつ人々。" () Ja ...
as a race and nation. Indeed, Anami expressed a desire for this outcome rather than surrender, asking if it would "not be wondrous for this whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower". The cabinet meeting adjourned at 17:30 with no consensus. A second meeting lasting from 18:00 to 22:00 also ended with no consensus. Following this second meeting, Suzuki and Tōgō met the Emperor, and Suzuki proposed an impromptu
Imperial conference Imperial Conferences (Colonial Conferences before 1907) were periodic gatherings of government leaders from the self-governing colonies and dominions of the British Empire between 1887 and 1937, before the establishment of regular Meetings of ...
, which started just before midnight on the night of 9–10 August. Suzuki presented Anami's four-condition proposal as the consensus position of the Supreme Council. The other members of the Supreme Council spoke, as did Kiichirō Hiranuma, the President of the Privy Council, who outlined Japan's inability to defend itself and also described the country's domestic problems, such as the shortage of food. The cabinet debated, but again no consensus emerged. At around 02:00 (10 August), Suzuki finally addressed Emperor Hirohito, asking him to decide between the two positions. The participants later recollected that the Emperor stated: According to General Sumihisa Ikeda and Admiral Zenshirō Hoshina, Privy Council President Hiranuma then turned to the Emperor and asked him: "Your majesty, you also bear responsibility () for this defeat. What apology are you going to make to the heroic spirits of the imperial founder of your house and your other imperial ancestors?" Once the Emperor had left, Suzuki pushed the cabinet to accept the Emperor's will, which it did. Early that morning (10 August), the Foreign Ministry sent telegrams to the Allies (by way of Max Grässli at the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs ) announcing that Japan would accept the Potsdam Declaration, but would not accept any peace conditions that would "prejudice the prerogatives" of the Emperor. That effectively meant no change in Japan's form of government—that the Emperor of Japan would remain a position of real power.


12 August

The Allied response to Japan's qualified acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration was written by James F. Byrnes and approved by the British, Chinese, and Soviet governments, although the Soviets agreed only reluctantly. The Allies sent their response (via the Swiss Foreign Affairs Department) on 12 August. On the status of the Emperor it said: President Truman issued instructions that no further atomic weapons were to be dropped on Japan without presidential orders,"Truman said he had given orders to stop atomic bombing. He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 was too horrible. He didn't like the idea of killing, as he said, 'all those kids.'" Diary of Commerce Secretary Henry Wallace, 10 August 194
National Security Archives.
Retrieved 5 December 2017.
"It is not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President." – Reply written on memo from General Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, to General Marshall, USA chief of staff regarding the preparations for a third atomic strike. 10 August 194
National Security Archives.
Retrieved 5 December 2017.
but allowed military operations (including the B-29 firebombings) to continue until official word of Japanese surrender was received. However, news correspondents incorrectly interpreted a comment by General
Carl Spaatz Carl Andrew Spaatz (born Spatz; June 28, 1891 – July 14, 1974), nicknamed "Tooey", was an American World War II general. As commander of Strategic Air Forces in Europe in 1944, he successfully pressed for the bombing of the enemy's oil produc ...
, commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, that the B-29s were not flying on 11 August (because of bad weather) as a statement that a ceasefire was in effect. To avoid giving the Japanese the impression that the Allies had abandoned peace efforts and resumed bombing, Truman then ordered a halt to all further bombings. The Japanese cabinet considered the Allied response, and Suzuki argued that they must reject it and insist on an explicit guarantee for the imperial system. Anami returned to his position that there be no occupation of Japan. Afterward, Tōgō told Suzuki that there was no hope of getting better terms, and Kido conveyed the Emperor's will that Japan surrender. In a meeting with the Emperor, Yonai spoke of his concerns about growing civil unrest: That day, Hirohito informed the imperial family of his decision to surrender. One of his uncles,
Prince Asaka General was the founder of a collateral branch of the Japanese imperial family and a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Japanese invasion of China and the Second World War. Son-in-law of Emperor Meiji and uncle by marriage of E ...
, then asked whether the war would be continued if the ''
kokutai is a concept in the Japanese language translatable as " system of government", "sovereignty", "national identity, essence and character", "national polity; body politic; national entity; basis for the Emperor's sovereignty; Japanese constitu ...
'' (imperial sovereignty) could not be preserved. The Emperor simply replied "of course."


13–14 August

At the suggestion of American psychological operations experts, B-29s spent 13 August dropping leaflets over Japan, describing the Japanese offer of surrender and the Allied response.. The leaflets, some of which fell upon the Imperial Palace as the Emperor and his advisors met, had a profound effect on the Japanese decision-making process. It had become clear that a complete and total acceptance of Allied terms, even if it meant the dissolution of the Japanese government as it then existed, was the only possible way to secure peace. The Big Six and the cabinet debated their reply to the Allied response late into the night, but remained deadlocked. Meanwhile, the Allies grew doubtful, waiting for the Japanese to respond. The Japanese had been instructed that they could transmit an unqualified acceptance in the clear, but instead they sent out coded messages on matters unrelated to the surrender parlay. The Allies took this coded response as non-acceptance of the terms. Via
Ultra adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley P ...
intercepts, the Allies also detected increased diplomatic and military traffic, which was taken as evidence that the Japanese were preparing an "all-out
banzai attack Banzai charge is the term that was used by the Allied forces of World War II to refer to Japanese human wave attacks and swarming staged by infantry units. This term came from the Japanese battle cry , and was shortened to banzai, specifically ...
." President Truman ordered a resumption of attacks against Japan at maximum intensity "so as to impress Japanese officials that we mean business and are serious in getting them to accept our peace proposals without delay." In the largest and longest bombing raid of the
Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vas ...
, more than 400 B-29s attacked Japan during daylight on 14 August, and more than 300 that night. A total of 1,014 aircraft were used with no losses. B-29s from the 315 Bombardment Wing flew to destroy the Nippon Oil Company refinery at
Tsuchizaki is a neighbourhood located in Akita City, Akita Prefecture, Japan. , the neighbourhood had an estimated population of 21,310 and a population density of 3,400 persons per km². The total area of the neibourhood is . Annexed by the city in 1941 ...
on the northern tip of Honshū. This was the last operational refinery in the Japanese Home Islands, and it produced 67% of their oil. The attacks continued right through the announcement of the Japanese surrender, and indeed for some time afterwards. Truman had ordered a halt to atomic bombings on 10 August, upon receiving news that another bomb would be ready for use against Japan in about a week. He told his cabinet that he could not stand the thought of killing "all those kids." By 14 August, however, Truman remarked "sadly" to the British ambassador that "he now had no alternative but to order an atomic bomb dropped on Tokyo," as some of his military staff had been advocating. As 14 August dawned, Suzuki, Kido, and the Emperor realized the day would end with either an acceptance of the American terms or a military coup.. The Emperor met with the most senior Army and Navy officers. While several spoke in favor of fighting on, Field Marshal
Shunroku Hata was a field marshal ('' gensui'') in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. He was the last surviving Japanese military officer with a marshal's rank. Hata was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1948, but was ...
did not. As commander of the
Second General Army ''Dai-ni Sōgun'' , image = , caption = , dates = April 8, 1945-November 30, 1945 , country = Empire of Japan , allegiance = Empe ...
, the headquarters of which had been in Hiroshima, Hata commanded all the troops defending southern Japan—the troops preparing to fight the "decisive battle". Hata said he had no confidence in defeating the invasion and did not dispute the Emperor's decision. The Emperor asked his military leaders to cooperate with him in ending the war. At a conference with the cabinet and other councilors, Anami, Toyoda, and Umezu again made their case for continuing to fight, after which the Emperor said: The cabinet immediately convened and unanimously ratified the Emperor's wishes. They also decided to destroy vast amounts of material pertaining to war crimes and the war responsibility of the nation's highest leaders. Immediately after the conference, the Foreign Ministry transmitted orders to its embassies in Switzerland and Sweden to accept the Allied terms of surrender. These orders were picked up and received in Washington at 02:49, 14 August. Difficulty with senior commanders on the distant war fronts was anticipated. Three princes of the Imperial Family who held military commissions were dispatched on 14 August to deliver the news personally.
Prince Tsuneyoshi Takeda was the second and last heir of the Takeda-no-miya collateral branch of the Japanese Imperial Family. Biography Early life Prince Takeda Tsuneyoshi was the only son of Prince Takeda Tsunehisa and Masako, Princess Tsune (1888–1940), the ...
went to Korea and Manchuria,
Prince Yasuhiko Asaka General was the founder of a collateral branch of the Japanese imperial family and a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Japanese invasion of China and the Second World War. Son-in-law of Emperor Meiji and uncle by marriage o ...
to the China Expeditionary Army and China Fleet, and
Prince Kan'in Haruhito was a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and the 7th (and final) head of the Kan'in-no-miya line of ''shinnōke'' cadet branches of the Imperial Family of Japan. Biography Prince Kan'in Haruhito was the only survi ...
to Shanghai, South China, Indochina and Singapore. The text of the Imperial Rescript on surrender was finalized by 19:00 August 14, transcribed by the official court calligrapher, and brought to the cabinet for their signatures. Around 23:00, the Emperor, with help from an
NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...
recording crew, made a
gramophone record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts ne ...
of himself reading it.. The record was given to court chamberlain
Yoshihiro Tokugawa was a Japanese political figure of the mid to late 20th century. The grandson of Tokugawa Yoshikatsu, the last lord of Owari han, he served as Grand Chamberlain of Japan from 1985 to 1988, serving as the Emperor of Japan's personal adviser. Yoshi ...
, who hid it in a locker in the office of
Empress Kōjun , born , was a member of the Imperial House of Japan, the wife of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) and the mother of Shigeko Higashikuni, Princess Sachiko Hisa-nomiya, Kazuko Takatsukasa, Atsuko Ikeda, the Emperor Emeritus Akihito, Prince Masahito ...
's secretary..


Attempted coup d'état (12–15 August)

Late on the night of 12 August 1945, Major
Kenji Hatanaka (28 March 1912 – 15 August 1945) was a Japanese military officer and one of the chief conspirators in the Kyūjō incident, a plot to seize the Imperial Palace and to prevent the broadcast of Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech to mark th ...
, along with Lieutenant Colonels
Masataka Ida Lt. Col. (5 October 1912 – 6 February 2004) was a young Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Affairs Section of the Japanese Ministry of War, at the end of World War II. He had been stationed on Formosa (Taiwan), but was ordered back to Tokyo ...
, Masahiko Takeshita (Anami's brother-in-law), and Inaba Masao, and Colonel
Okikatsu Arao Colonel was one of the original plotters in a scheme to prevent the Emperor's declaration of surrender at the end of World War II. He was the chief of the War Affairs section of the Military Affairs Bureau of the Imperial Japanese Army. Conspi ...
, the Chief of the Military Affairs Section, spoke to
War Minister A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in so ...
Korechika Anami was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II who was War Minister during the surrender of Japan. Early life and career Anami was born in Taketa city in Ōita Prefecture, where his father was a senior bureaucrat in the Home M ...
(the army minister and "most powerful figure in Japan besides the Emperor himself"), and asked him to do whatever he could to prevent acceptance of the
Potsdam Declaration The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, Uni ...
. General Anami refused to say whether he would help the young officers in treason. As much as they needed his support, Hatanaka and the other rebels decided they had no choice but to continue planning and to attempt a
coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
on their own. Hatanaka spent much of 13 August and the morning of 14 August gathering allies, seeking support from the higher-ups in the Ministry, and perfecting his plot. Shortly after the conference on the night of 13–14 August at which the surrender finally was decided, a group of senior army officers including Anami gathered in a nearby room. All those present were concerned about the possibility of a coup d'état to prevent the surrender—some of those present may have even been considering launching one. After a silence, General Torashirō Kawabe proposed that all senior officers present sign an agreement to carry out the Emperor's order of surrender—"The Army will act in accordance with the Imperial Decision to the last." It was signed by all the high-ranking officers present, including Anami,
Hajime Sugiyama was a Japanese field marshal and one of the leaders of Japan's military throughout most of World War II. As Army Minister in 1937, Sugiyama was a driving force behind the launch of hostilities against China in retaliation for the Marco Polo Bri ...
, Yoshijirō Umezu,
Kenji Doihara was a Japanese army officer. As a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, he was instrumental in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. As a leading intelligence officer, he played a key role to the Japanese machinations that ...
, Torashirō Kawabe,
Masakazu Kawabe was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army. He held important commands in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and during World War II in the Burma Campaign and defense of the Japanese homeland late in the war. He was ...
, and Tadaichi Wakamatsu. "This written accord by the most senior officers in the Army ... acted as a formidable firebreak against any attempt to incite a coup d'état in Tokyo." Around 21:30 on 14 August, Hatanaka's rebels set their plan into motion. The Second Regiment of the First Imperial Guards had entered the palace grounds, doubling the strength of the battalion already stationed there, presumably to provide extra protection against Hatanaka's rebellion. But Hatanaka, along with Lt. Col. Jirō Shiizaki, convinced the commander of the 2nd Regiment of the First Imperial Guards, Colonel Toyojirō Haga, of their cause, by telling him (falsely) that Generals Anami and Umezu, and the commanders of the
Eastern District Army The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army responsible for the defense of the Kantō region and northern Honshū during the Pacific War. It was one of the regional commands in the Japanese home islands reporting to the General Defense Comm ...
and Imperial Guards Divisions were all in on the plan. Hatanaka also went to the office of
Shizuichi Tanaka was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and Japanese Military Governor of the Philippines during World War II. Biography Early life and military service Tanaka was born in Issai village, Hyōgo prefecture (now part of the city of Tatsun ...
, commander of the Eastern region of the army, to try to persuade him to join the coup. Tanaka refused, and ordered Hatanaka to go home. Hatanaka ignored the order. Originally, Hatanaka hoped that simply occupying the palace and showing the beginnings of a rebellion would inspire the rest of the Army to rise up against the move to surrender. This notion guided him through much of the last days and hours and gave him the blind optimism to move ahead with the plan, despite having little support from his superiors. Having set all the pieces into position, Hatanaka and his co-conspirators decided that the Guard would take over the palace at 02:00. The hours until then were spent in continued attempts to convince their superiors in the Army to join the coup. At about the same time, General Anami committed ''
seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...
,'' leaving a message that, "I—with my death—humbly apologize to the Emperor for the great crime." Whether the crime involved losing the war, or the coup, remains unclear. At some time after 01:00, Hatanaka and his men surrounded the palace. Hatanaka, Shiizaki, Ida, and Captain Shigetarō Uehara (of the Air Force Academy) went to the office of Lt. General Takeshi Mori to ask him to join the coup. Mori was in a meeting with his brother-in-law,
Michinori Shiraishi (1 December 1910 – 15 August 1945) was a Lieutenant Colonel () in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. He was brother-in-law to General Takeshi Mori, commander of the First Imperial Guards Division, in charge of defending Tokyo a ...
. The cooperation of Mori, as commander of the 1st Imperial Guards Division, was crucial. When Mori refused to side with Hatanaka, Hatanaka killed him, fearing Mori would order the Guards to stop the rebellion. Uehara killed Shiraishi. These were the only two murders of the night. Hatanaka then used General Mori's official stamp to authorize Imperial Guards Division Strategic Order No. 584, a false set of orders created by his co-conspirators, which would greatly increase the strength of the forces occupying the Imperial Palace and
Imperial Household Ministry The (IHA) is an agency of the government of Japan in charge of state matters concerning the Imperial Family, and also the keeping of the Privy Seal and State Seal of Japan. From around the 8th century AD, up until the Second World War, it ...
, and "protecting" the Emperor. The palace police were disarmed and all the entrances blocked. Over the course of the night, Hatanaka's rebels captured and detained eighteen people, including Ministry staff and
NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...
workers sent to record the surrender speech. The rebels, led by Hatanaka, spent the next several hours fruitlessly searching for Imperial House Minister Sōtarō Ishiwata, Lord of the Privy Seal Kōichi Kido, and the recordings of the surrender speech. The two men were hiding in the "bank vault", a large chamber underneath the Imperial Palace. The search was made more difficult by a blackout in response to Allied bombings, and by the archaic organization and layout of the Imperial House Ministry. Many of the names of the rooms were unrecognizable to the rebels. The rebels did find the chamberlain
Yoshihiro Tokugawa was a Japanese political figure of the mid to late 20th century. The grandson of Tokugawa Yoshikatsu, the last lord of Owari han, he served as Grand Chamberlain of Japan from 1985 to 1988, serving as the Emperor of Japan's personal adviser. Yoshi ...
. Although Hatanaka threatened to disembowel him with a samurai sword, Tokugawa lied and told them he did not know where the recordings or men were.. At about the same time, another group of Hatanaka's rebels led by Captain Takeo Sasaki went to Prime Minister Suzuki's office, intent on killing him. When they found it empty, they machine-gunned the office and set the building on fire, then left for his home.
Hisatsune Sakomizu was a Japanese government official and politician before, during and after World War II. He is well known for serving as the chief secretary to Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki's Cabinet (April–August 1945). He was ordered by Suzuki to inves ...
, the chief secretary to Suzuki's Cabinet, had warned Suzuki, and he escaped minutes before the would-be assassins arrived. After setting fire to Suzuki's home, they went to the estate of Kiichirō Hiranuma to assassinate him. Hiranuma escaped through a side gate and the rebels burned his house as well. Suzuki spent the rest of August under police protection, spending each night in a different bed.. Around 03:00, Hatanaka was informed by Lieutenant Colonel
Masataka Ida Lt. Col. (5 October 1912 – 6 February 2004) was a young Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Affairs Section of the Japanese Ministry of War, at the end of World War II. He had been stationed on Formosa (Taiwan), but was ordered back to Tokyo ...
that the
Eastern District Army The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army responsible for the defense of the Kantō region and northern Honshū during the Pacific War. It was one of the regional commands in the Japanese home islands reporting to the General Defense Comm ...
was on its way to the palace to stop him, and that he should give up. Finally, seeing his plan collapsing around him, Hatanaka pleaded with Tatsuhiko Takashima, Chief of Staff of the
Eastern District Army The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army responsible for the defense of the Kantō region and northern Honshū during the Pacific War. It was one of the regional commands in the Japanese home islands reporting to the General Defense Comm ...
, to be given at least ten minutes on the air on
NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...
radio, to explain to the people of Japan what he was trying to accomplish and why. He was refused. Colonel Haga, commander of the 2nd Regiment of the First Imperial Guards, discovered that the Army did not support this rebellion, and he ordered Hatanaka to leave the palace grounds. Just before 05:00, as his rebels continued their search, Major Hatanaka went to the NHK studios, and, brandishing a pistol, tried desperately to get some airtime to explain his actions. A little over an hour later, after receiving a telephone call from the
Eastern District Army The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army responsible for the defense of the Kantō region and northern Honshū during the Pacific War. It was one of the regional commands in the Japanese home islands reporting to the General Defense Comm ...
, Hatanaka finally gave up. He gathered his officers and walked out of the NHK studio. At dawn, Tanaka learned that the palace had been invaded. He went there and confronted the rebellious officers, berating them for acting contrary to the spirit of the Japanese army. He convinced them to return to their barracks. By 08:00, the rebellion was entirely dismantled, having succeeded in holding the palace grounds for much of the night but failing to find the recordings. Hatanaka, on a motorcycle, and Shiizaki, on horseback, rode through the streets, tossing leaflets that explained their motives and their actions. Within an hour before the Emperor's broadcast, sometime around 11:00, 15 August, Hatanaka placed his pistol to his forehead, and shot himself. Shiizaki stabbed himself with a dagger, and then shot himself. In Hatanaka's pocket was his
death poem The death poem is a genre of poetry that developed in the literary traditions of East Asian cultures—most prominently in Japan as well as certain periods of Chinese history and Joseon Korea. They tend to offer a reflection on death—both in g ...
: "I have nothing to regret now that the dark clouds have disappeared from the reign of the Emperor."


Surrender

Emperor Hirohito gave different reasons to the public and the military for the surrender: When addressing the public, he said, "the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable ... . Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization." When addressing the military, he did not mention the "new and most cruel bomb" but rather said that "the Soviet Union has entered the war against us, ndto continue the war ... would ndangerthe very foundation of the Empire's existence."


15 August 1945, surrender speech to the Japanese public

' At 12:00 noon
Japan Standard Time , or , is the standard time zone in Japan, 9 hours ahead of UTC ( UTC+09:00). Japan does not observe daylight saving time, though its introduction has been debated on several occasions. During World War II, the time zone was often referred t ...
on 15 August, the Emperor's recorded speech to the nation, reading the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War, was broadcast: The low quality of the recording, combined with the
Classical Japanese language The classical Japanese language ( ''bungo'', "literary language"), also called "old writing" ( ''kobun''), sometimes simply called "Medieval Japanese" is the Literary language, literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until ...
used by the Emperor in the Rescript, made the recording very difficult to understand for most listeners. In addition, the Emperor did not explicitly mention surrender in his speech. To prevent confusion the recording was immediately followed by a clarification that Japan was indeed unconditionally surrendering to the Allies. Public reaction to the Emperor's speech varied—many Japanese simply listened to it, then went on with their lives as best they could, while some Army and Navy officers chose suicide over surrender. A small crowd gathered in front of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and cried, but as author John Dower notes, the tears they shed "reflected a multitude of sentiments ... anguish, regret, bereavement and anger at having been deceived, sudden emptiness and loss of purpose". On 17 August, Suzuki was replaced as prime minister by the Emperor's uncle,
Prince Higashikuni General was a Japanese imperial prince, a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and the 30th Prime Minister of Japan from 17 August 1945 to 9 October 1945, a period of 54 days. An uncle-in-law of Emperor Hirohito twice over, Prince Hi ...
, perhaps to forestall any further coup or assassination attempts. Japan's forces were still fighting against the Soviets as well as the Chinese, and managing their cease-fire and surrender was difficult. The last air combat by Japanese fighters against American reconnaissance bombers took place on 18 August. The Soviet Union continued to fight until early September, taking the Kuril Islands.


17 August 1945, surrender speech to the Japanese military

Two days after Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech to civilians was broadcast, he delivered a shorter speech "To the officers and men of the imperial forces". He said, "Three years and eight months have elapsed since we declared war on the United States and Britain. During this time our beloved men of the army and navy, sacrificing their lives, have fought valiantly ..., and of this we are deeply grateful. Now that the Soviet Union has entered the war against us, to continue the war under the present internal and external conditions would be only to increase needlessly the ravages of war finally to the point of endangering the very foundation of the Empire's existence. With that in mind and although the fighting spirit of the Imperial Army and Navy is as high as ever, with a view to maintaining and protecting our noble national policy we are about to make peace with the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and Chungking. ... We trust that you officers and men of the Imperial forces will comply with our intention and will ... bear the unbearable and leave an everlasting foundation of the nation."


Occupation and the surrender ceremony

News of the Japanese acceptance of the surrender terms was announced to the American public via radio at 7 p.m. on 14 August, sparking massive celebrations. Allied civilians and servicemen everywhere rejoiced at the news of the end of the war. A photograph, '' V-J Day in Times Square'', of an American sailor kissing a woman in New York, and a news film of the '' Dancing Man'' in Sydney have come to epitomize the immediate celebrations. 14 and 15 August are commemorated as
Victory over Japan Day Victory over Japan Day (also known as V-J Day, Victory in the Pacific Day, or V-P Day) is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end. The term has been applied to both of the days on ...
in many Allied countries. Japan's sudden surrender after the unexpected use of atomic weapons surprised most governments outside the US and UK. The Soviet Union had some intentions of occupying Hokkaidō.. Unlike the Soviet occupations of eastern Germany and northern Korea, however, these plans were frustrated by the opposition of
President Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Frankli ...
. In the aftermath of Japan's declaration of surrender, US
B-32 Dominator The Consolidated B-32 Dominator (Consolidated Model 34) was an American heavy strategic bomber built for United States Army Air Forces during World War II, which had the distinction of being the last Allied aircraft to be engaged in combat dur ...
bombers based in Okinawa began flying reconnaissance missions over Japan in order to monitor Japanese compliance with the cease-fire, gather information to better enable the establishment of the occupation, and test the fidelity of the Japanese, as it was feared that the Japanese were planning to attack occupation forces. During the first such B-32 reconnaissance mission, the bomber was tracked by Japanese radars but completed its mission without interference. On 18 August, a group of four B-32s overflying Tokyo were attacked by Japanese naval fighter aircraft from
Naval Air Facility Atsugi is a joint Japan-US naval air base located in the cities of Yamato and Ayase in Kanagawa, Japan. It is the largest United States Navy (USN) air base in the Pacific Ocean and once housed the squadrons of Carrier Air Wing Five (CVW-5), which ...
and Yokosuka Naval Airfield. The Japanese pilots were acting without authorization from the Japanese government. They were either opposed to the cease-fire or believed that Japanese airspace should remain inviolate until a formal surrender document was signed. They caused only minor damage and were held at bay by the B-32 gunners. The incident surprised US commanders, and prompted them to send additional reconnaissance flights to ascertain whether it was an isolated attack by die-hards acting independently or if Japan intended to continue fighting. The following day, two B-32s on a reconnaissance mission over Tokyo were attacked by Japanese fighter aircraft out of Yokosuka Naval Airfield, with the pilots again acting on their own initiative, damaging one bomber. One of the bomber's crewmen was killed and two others wounded. It was the last aerial engagement of the war. The following day, as per the terms of the cease-fire agreement, the propellers were removed from all Japanese aircraft and further Allied reconnaissance flights over Japan went unchallenged. Japanese officials left for
Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populated ...
on 19 August to meet
Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers was the title held by General Douglas MacArthur during the United States-led Allied occupation of Japan following World War II. It issued SCAP Directives (alias SCAPIN, SCAP Index Number) to the Japanese government, aiming to suppress its "milit ...
Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was ...
, and to be briefed on his plans for the occupation. On 28 August 150 US personnel flew to
Atsugi is a city located in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 223,960 and a population density of 2400 persons per km². The total area of the city is . While the name "Atsugi" is often associated with the Unite ...
,
Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanag ...
, and the
occupation of Japan Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States ...
began. They were followed by , whose accompanying vessels landed the
4th Marines The 4th Marine Regiment is an infantry regiment of the United States Marine Corps. Based at Camp Schwab in Okinawa, Japan, it is part of the 3rd Marine Division of the III Marine Expeditionary Force. Mission Close with and destroy the enemy by fi ...
on the southern coast of Kanagawa. The
11th Airborne Division The 11th Airborne Division ("Arctic Angels") is a United States Army airborne formation, first activated on 25 February 1943, during World War II. Consisting of one parachute and two glider infantry regiments, with supporting troops, the di ...
was airlifted from Okinawa to Atsugi Airdrome, from
Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
. Other Allied personnel followed. MacArthur arrived in Tokyo on 30 August, and immediately decreed several laws: No Allied personnel were to assault Japanese people. No Allied personnel were to eat the scarce Japanese food. Flying the '' Hinomaru'' or " Rising Sun" flag was severely restricted. The formal surrender occurred on 2 September 1945, around 9 a.m., Tokyo time, when representatives from the
Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent form ...
signed the
Japanese Instrument of Surrender The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was the written agreement that formalized the surrender of the Empire of Japan, marking the end of hostilities in World War II. It was signed by representatives from the Empire of Japan and from the Allied ...
in
Tokyo Bay is a bay located in the southern Kantō region of Japan, and spans the coasts of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Chiba Prefecture. Tokyo Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Uraga Channel. The Tokyo Bay region is both the most populou ...
aboard USS ''Missouri''. The dignitaries or representatives from around the world were carefully scheduled to board USS ''Missouri''. Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu signed for the Japanese government, while Gen. Umezu signed for the Japanese armed forces. The surrender ceremony was carefully planned on board USS ''Missouri'' detailing the seating positions of all Army, Navy, and Allied Representatives. The ceremony was filmed in color by
George F. Kosco Captain George Francis Kosco (1 April 1908 – 11 June 1985) was a United States Navy aerologist and polar explorer. Kosco was born in Ramsaytown, Pennsylvania, on 1 April 1908. He was a Slovak American: his father had come from Oľšov, an ...
, but the footage was released publicly only in 2010. Each signatory sat before an ordinary mess deck table covered with green felt and signed two unconditional Instruments of Surrender—a leather-bound version for the Allied forces and a canvas-backed version for the Japanese. Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed on behalf of the Japanese government followed by the uniformed General Yoshijiro Umezu, Chief of the Imperial General Staff. MacArthur signed on behalf of the Allied nations, followed by Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz as U.S. Representative. Representatives of eight other Allied nations, led by Chinese representative General
Xu Yongchang General Xu Yongchang (15 December 188512 July 1959) (Hsu Yung-chang; ; style name: Cichen (Tzu-chen)) was the Minister of Board of Military Operations of the Republic of China between December 22, 1948, and April 22, 1949, and the representative o ...
, followed Nimitz. Other notable signatories include Admiral Bruce Fraser for the United Kingdom, and Général d'armée
Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque Philippe François Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque (22 November 1902 – 28 November 1947) was a Free-French general during the Second World War. He became Marshal of France posthumously in 1952, and is known in France simply as le maréchal ...
for
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. On ''Missouri'' that day was the same American flag that had been flown in 1853 on by Commodore Matthew C. Perry on the first of his two expeditions to Japan. Perry's expeditions had resulted in the
Convention of Kanagawa The Convention of Kanagawa, also known as the Kanagawa Treaty (, ''Kanagawa Jōyaku'') or the Japan–US Treaty of Peace and Amity (, ''Nichibei Washin Jōyaku''), was a treaty signed between the United States and the Tokugawa Shogunate on March ...
, which forced the Japanese to open the country to American trade. After the formal surrender on 2 September aboard ''Missouri'', investigations into
Japanese war crimes The Empire of Japan committed war crimes in many Asian-Pacific countries during the period of Japanese imperialism, primarily during the Second Sino-Japanese and Pacific Wars. These incidents have been described as an "Asian Holocaust". Som ...
began quickly. Many members of the imperial family, such as his brothers Prince Chichibu, Prince Takamatsu and
Prince Mikasa was a Japanese prince, the youngest of the four sons of Emperor Taishō (Yoshihito) and Empress Teimei (Sadako). He was their last surviving child. His eldest brother was Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito). After serving as a junior cavalry officer in ...
, and his uncle
Prince Higashikuni General was a Japanese imperial prince, a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and the 30th Prime Minister of Japan from 17 August 1945 to 9 October 1945, a period of 54 days. An uncle-in-law of Emperor Hirohito twice over, Prince Hi ...
, pressured the Emperor to abdicate so that one of the Princes could serve as regent until Crown Prince
Akihito is a member of the Imperial House of Japan who reigned as the 125th emperor of Japan from 7 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. He presided over the Heisei era, ''Heisei'' being an expression of achieving peace worldwide. B ...
came of age. However, at a meeting with the Emperor later in September, General MacArthur assured him he needed his help to govern Japan and so Hirohito was never tried. Legal procedures for the
International Military Tribunal for the Far East The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trial or the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was a military trial convened on April 29, 1946 to try leaders of the Empire of Japan for crimes against peace, conv ...
were issued on 19 January 1946, without any member of the imperial family being prosecuted. In addition to 14 and 15 August, 2 September 1945, is also known as V-J Day."1945: Japan signs unconditional surrender"
On This Day: 2 September, BBC.
President Truman declared 2 September to be V-J Day, but noted that "It is not yet the day for the formal proclamation of the end of the war nor of the cessation of hostilities." In Japan, 15 August is often called (), which literally means the '
memorial day for the end of the war The is an official, secular ceremony conducted annually on August 15, by the Japanese government at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan. The ceremony is held to commemorate the victims of World War II. The first memorial ceremony was held on M ...
', but the government's name for the day (which is not a national holiday) is (, 'day for mourning of war dead and praying for peace').


Further surrenders and resistance

A nearly simultaneous surrender ceremony was held on 2 September aboard at
Truk Atoll Chuuk Lagoon, previously Truk Atoll, is an atoll in the central Pacific. It lies about northeast of New Guinea, and is part of Chuuk State within the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). A protective reef, around, encloses a natural harbou ...
, where Vice Admiral
George D. Murray George Dominic Murray (July 6, 1889 – June 18, 1956) was an admiral in the United States Navy and an early naval aviator. Biography Murray was born in Boston, Massachusetts, attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1911 and becoming ...
accepted the surrender of the
Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the ce ...
from senior Japanese military and civilian officials. Following the signing of the instrument of surrender, many further surrender ceremonies took place across Japan's remaining holdings in the Pacific. Japanese forces in
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
surrendered on 2 September 1945, in
Penang Penang ( ms, Pulau Pinang, is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, by the Malacca Strait. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the M ...
, 10 September in
Labuan Labuan (), officially the Federal Territory of Labuan ( ms, Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan), is a Federal Territory of Malaysia. Its territory includes and six smaller islands, off the coast of the state of Sabah in East Malaysia. Labuan's capita ...
, 11 September in the
Kingdom of Sarawak (While I breathe, I hope) , national_anthem = ''Gone Forth Beyond the Sea'' , capital = Kuching , common_languages = English, Iban, Melanau, Bidayuh, Sarawak Malay, Chinese etc. , government_type = Abso ...
and 12 September in
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
. The
Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Ta ...
took over the administration of
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...
on 25 October. It was not until 1947 that all prisoners held by America and Britain were
repatriated Repatriation is the process of returning a thing or a person to its country of origin or citizenship. The term may refer to non-human entities, such as converting a foreign currency into the currency of one's own country, as well as to the pro ...
. As late as April 1949, China still held more than 60,000 Japanese prisoners. Some, such as
Shozo Tominaga
Japan Times, January 15, 2002
was a
, were not repatriated until the late 1950s. The logistical demands of the surrender were formidable. After Japan's capitulation, more than 5,400,000 Japanese soldiers and 1,800,000 Japanese sailors were taken prisoner by the Allies. The damage done to Japan's infrastructure, combined with a severe famine in 1946, further complicated the Allied efforts to feed the Japanese POWs and civilians. The state of war between most of the Allies and Japan officially ended when the
Treaty of San Francisco The , also called the , re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and including World War II. It w ...
took effect on 28 April 1952. The same day this treaty took effect, Japan formally made peace with the
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...
with the signing of the Treaty of Taipei. Japan and the Soviet Union formally made peace four years later, when they signed the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956.
Japanese holdout Japanese holdouts ( ja, 残留日本兵, translit=Zanryū nipponhei, lit=remaining Japanese soldiers) were soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during the Pacific Theatre of World War II who continued fighting World Wa ...
s, especially on small Pacific Islands, refused to surrender at all (believing the declaration to be propaganda or considering surrender against their code). Some may never have heard of it. Teruo Nakamura, the last known holdout, emerged from his hidden retreat in what was now independent Indonesia in December 1974, while two other Japanese soldiers, who had joined
Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
guerrillas at the end of the war, fought in southern
Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
until 1991.


See also

*
Aftermath of World War II The aftermath of World War II was the beginning of a new era started in late 1945 (when World War II ended) for all countries involved, defined by the decline of all colonial empires and simultaneous rise of two superpowers; the Soviet Union ( ...
*
Hypothetical Axis victory in World War II A hypothetical military victory of the Axis powers over the Allies of World War II (1939–1945) is a common topic in speculative literature. Works of alternative history (fiction) and of counterfactual history (non-fiction), including stories ...
* Japanese American service in World War II *
Japanese dissidence during the early Shōwa period Political dissidence in the Empire of Japan covers individual Japanese dissidents against the policies of the Empire of Japan. Dissidence in the Meiji and Taishō eras High Treason Incident Shūsui Kōtoku, a Japanese anarchist, was critical ...
*
Japanese post-war economic miracle The Japanese economic miracle refers to Japan's record period of economic growth between the post-World War II era and the end of the Cold War. During the economic boom, Japan rapidly became the world's second-largest economy (after the Unit ...
*
Post–World War II economic expansion The post–World War II economic expansion, also known as the postwar economic boom or the Golden Age of Capitalism, was a broad period of worldwide economic expansion beginning after World War II and ending with the 1973–1975 recession. The ...
*
Surrender of Germany The German Instrument of Surrender (german: Bedingungslose Kapitulation der Wehrmacht, lit=Unconditional Capitulation of the "Wehrmacht"; russian: Акт о капитуляции Германии, Akt o kapitulyatsii Germanii, lit=Act of capit ...


References


Footnotes


Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (also Souvenir Press Ltd, London); Japanese edition (1965) as by Bungei Shunju, Tokyo. * * * * * * *
Extracts on-line
* * * * * * *


Further reading

* * * * * * *


External links


Japanese Instruments of Surrender
* *
Minutes of private talk
between British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
and Marshal
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
at the
Potsdam Conference The Potsdam Conference (german: Potsdamer Konferenz) was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris P ...
on 17 July 1945 * – Article ID 2501 �
PDF
{{Authority control Occupied Japan Japan in World War II 1945 in Japan August 1945 events in Asia September 1945 events in Asia Japan–United States relations Japan–Soviet Union relations
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
1945 in military history