67 years ago today: WWII officially ended...

[PALADIN85020]

On September 2, 1945, the Japanese signed their surrender document on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay. This act officially ended WWII, although pockets of Japanese resistance endured here and there for quite a while.

President Truman made the decision to drop two atomic bombs, one on Hiroshima, and the other on Nagasaki. Had this decision not been made, the Japanese were prepared to defend their islands fanatically to the last man, woman and child, and many thousands of lives would have been lost on both sides. The A-bombs convinced the Japanese that continuing the war would be futile.

We owe a debt of gratitude to our service men and women of World War II. Thousands died, and those that survived often had debilitating wounds for the rest of their lives. These folks of the "greatest generation" are now dying out, but their legacy of ensuring freedom for us lives on.

Here are some pictures that you might find interesting.

This first is of the Japanese officials preparatory to the surrender:

Here is the formal signing for the Japanese by General Yoshijiro Umezo:

General Douglas McArthur verified the signing for the Allies:

An immense and impressive celebratory flyover by Allied planes emphasized the might of our forces. Seen here are F4U and F6F fighter planes:

Today, the U.S.S. Missouri is permanently berthed next to the sunken hull of the U.S.S. Arizona, which has remained there as a memorial since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which started the war for us. I took this picture last summer; the rainbow, I think, was iconic - there is now peace between our two countries.

Never forget.

John

 

[REM 3200]

President Truman made the decision to drop two atomic bombs, one on Hiroshima, and the other on Nagasaki. Had this decision not been made, the Japanese were prepared to defend their islands fanatically to the last man, woman and child, and many thousands of lives would have been lost on both sides. The A-bombs convinced the Japanese that continuing the war would be futile.

The dropping of those two bombs probably saved my Dad's life. He was with the 11th ABN DIV, which was part of the invasion force for the home islands of Japan. My mother and I joined him in the Philippines in Sept 1946.

 

[Frank237]

Every VJ Day I think of that iconic photo , that seems to summarize the mood that day In America. The Sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square. Everyone around them smiling...it had to be a heck of a day.

What a Generation!

 

[PALADIN85020]

Every VJ Day I think of that iconic photo , that seems to summarize the mood that day In America. The Sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square. Everyone around them smiling...it had to be a heck of a day.

What a Generation!

It's an unforgettable picture, for sure. What a happy day!

John

 

[cmort666]

The A-bombs convinced the Japanese that continuing the war would be futile.

That, and the massive Soviet invasion of Manchuria, Korea, South Sakhalin, the Kuriles and North China.

Stalin was planning to attack Japan at the end of August. The bombs caused him to move the attack forward significantly. The combination of the bombs and the slaughter of the Kwantung Army convinced everyone but the most deranged military men that the war was well and truly lost.

One not commonly noted benefit of the bombs was the ending of the war before Stalin was prepared to invade Hokkaido. That would have been an utter disaster for the post-war reconstruction of Japan.

And yet, it was entirely possible that the psychotics in the Japanese Army could have prevented the surrender. They launched a coup attempt the night before the surrender, aimed at seizing the surrender recordings and taking over the Imperial Palace. Had they not impulsively murdered a senior officer who failed to endorse the coup, coupled with a B-29 raid that blacked out the palace making it impossible for them to find the recordings, the war might have gone on and turned Japan into a "Mad Max" style dystopia. When it was all said and done, there could have been more ethnic Japanese in California and Brazil than would have been left in Japan itself.

 

[Thuer]

You are right. Thanks for the reminder. Never forgett the past. Other wise you can make the same mistakes.

 

[wundudnee]

Here are a couple of newspapers that my Dad sent back from Hawaii while in the Navy.

 

[feralmerril]

I just barely remember it. I wonder how many of us here are old enough to remember it? I think V richard was part of it. Do we have others that were sevicemen then? I still have one uncle alive that was in at the time. Also my ex father in law is still alive and witnessed the surrender from a distance. I think he said he got on the mainland the next day and walked the streets etc.
He told me how our ships made huge circles to make the japanese think there were more ships than there were.

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

Thanks for the reminder. Haven't seen this mentioned in any of the media. It was a Sunday as well.

Japanese Sign Final Surrender - YouTube

 

[BarbC]

That, and the massive Soviet invasion of Manchuria, Korea, South Sakhalin, the Kuriles and North China.

What I endure most often here from the Russians is the phrase, "Thanks for showing up for WWII -- late."

The US suffered 416,800 military deaths and 1700 civilian (0.32% of the population).

The USSR suffered 10,000,000 military deaths and 14,000 civilian. (13.88% of the population).

They haven't forgotten it, either.

 

[cmort666]

What I endure most often here from the Russians is the phrase, "Thanks for showing up for WWII -- late."

My reply when Stalinists try that with me:

"Thanks for getting the war STARTED by JOINTLY invading Poland with Hitler."

If it weren't for the Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact, and everybody's well justified mistrust of Stalin, there might not have BEEN a war, OR it might have begun and ended in the Sudetenland.

 

[Cyrano]

The USSR suffered 10,000,000 military deaths and 14,000 civilian. (13.88% of the population).

/QUOTE]

Barb, I think you left '000' off the number of civilian deaths. It should be about 14 million.

 

[cmort666]

The USSR suffered 10,000,000 military deaths and 14,000 civilian. (13.88% of the population).

Barb, I think you left '000' off the number of civilian deaths. It should be about 14 million.

Calculating Soviet casualties is as much art as science.

1. The GULAG machine never missed a beat during the war... except when it went into high gear in occupied territories facing imminent German occupation.
2. Combined with the pre-war slaughter of the Soviet officer corps, Soviet unpreparedness and Stalin's inept meddling in the early stages of the war led to horrendous and needless Soviet losses. On the first day of Barbarossa, the only units which performed well were naval units... which had not yet distributed Stalin's order to not respond to "provocations".
3. Becoming a POW was a CRIMINAL offense, as was being a RELATIVE of a POW. POWs were often sent to the GULAG (or worse) after repatriation.

As with everything else touched by Stalin, the "Great Patriotic War" was characterized by utter callousness toward human life and often shocking incompetence. To the extent it was successful, and even brilliant at times, that was usually in spite of Stalin, or at least due to his stepping back.

 

[Texas Star]

I'm glad that Truman had the bombs dropped. My father was on Okinawa and probably would have invaded Japan.

He was a petroleum engineer by profession and a reluctant soldier, unlike one son (of three) and grandson, who both enlisted. But he wasn't a draft dodger, either.

He said the fighting on Okinawa was over by the time he arrived. All he ever shot at was mongooses, imported to thin out habu pit vipers, for morale reasons.

 

[Cyrano]

No doubt the Soviets took horrendous losses; I read a book "Tank Rider" by a Soviet officer, Evgeni Bessonov, who graduated from their equivalent of OCS just before the start of the war in a class of 300. At the end of the war
only 6 were still alive, and the author had been wounded three times. The foul ups he recounted makes you wonder how they ever won.

 

[dondavis3]

Great pictures

I'd like to have been the one kissing the girl.

 

[cmort666]

No doubt the Soviets took horrendous losses; I read a book "Tank Rider" by a Soviet officer, Evgeni Bessonov, who graduated from their equivalent of OCS just before the start of the war in a class of 300. At the end of the war
only 6 were still alive, and the author had been wounded three times. The foul ups he recounted makes you wonder how they ever won.

Read "Ivan's War" and "Moscow 1941". The sheer scale of the carnage, directly attributable to Stalin's pre-war beheading of the Red Army, and his early war meltdown and incompetence is mind boggling. Whole corps were formed from volunteers and disappeared into oblivion.

And true to form, he shot those senior officers who obeyed his orders at the start of the war, rather than concede that those orders were nothing short of asinine.

The difference between Hitler and Stalin was that Stalin frequently learned from his mistakes, and over time let STAVKA run the details of the war. That of course didn't stop him from making bad strategic decisions that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

 

[Beemerguy53]

Thanks for this thread, and thanks to all for your input...

As a historical footnote, that USS Missouri mess table on which the Japanese signed the surrender is now in the museum at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

 

[BigBill]

I still think we should of dropped the bomb on Tokyo too. The b29 was already airborne and on the way. But we called it back. We must never forget. We were sending 2,000 bombers a night to bomb Japan. Patten was right to suggest about taking on a few more countries after the war. Maybe we could of had peace today.

 

[PALADIN85020]

I still think we should of dropped the bomb on Tokyo too. The b29 was already airborne and on the way. But we called it back. We must never forget. We were sending 2,000 bombers a night to bomb Japan. Patten was right to suggest about taking on a few more countries after the war. Maybe we could of had peace today.

If a B-29 was airborne to Tokyo, it was only carrying conventional bombs. As I understand it, we shot our wad with the only two operational atomic bombs we had. The fact that we didn't have more immediately available was a closely guarded secret.

Nuking Tokyo would have been a huge mistake. The Japanese needed the continuity of having emperor Hirohito still as the nominal head of the country. As it turned out, from V-J day onward, he was the puppet of the U.S. and did exactly what we told him; in turn the Japanese followed suit. Douglas MacArthur set up the framework of their new government, and that structure exists today. Without Hirohito doing our bidding, the task would have been enormous. It was a wise decision to keep Tokyo and the emperor in place for reconstruction.

John