I received the above video in an email and couldn’t wait until September, the anniversary of Japan’s surrender, to share with everyone. This is also a great follow up to my story about Major Norman Hatch, USMC (Ret). Go back and read all about him if you have missed it.
From Wikipedia:
The surrender of Japan in August 1945 brought hostilities in World War II to a close. By August 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy had effectively no capacity to conduct operations, and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. While publicly stating their intent to fight on to the bitter end, Japan’s leaders at the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War (the "Big Six") were privately making entreaties to the Soviet Union to mediate peace on terms favorable to the Japanese. The Soviets, meanwhile, were preparing to attack the Japanese, in fulfillment of their promise to the Americans and the British made at the Yalta Conference.
On August 6 and 9, the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. Also on August 9, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and launched a surprise invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, in violation of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact. These twin shocks caused Emperor Hirohito to intervene and order the Big Six to accept the terms the Allies had set down for ending the war in the Potsdam Declaration. After several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup d’état, Hirohito gave a recorded radio address to the nation on August 15. In the radio address, called the Gyokuon-hōsō (Jewel Voice Broadcast), he read the Imperial Rescript on surrender, announcing to the Japanese populace the surrender of Japan.
On August 28, the occupation of Japan by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers began. The surrender ceremony was held on September 2 aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri, at which officials from the Japanese government signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, officially ending World War II. Allied civilians and servicemen alike celebrated V-J Day, the end of the war. However, some isolated commands and personnel from Japan’s far-flung forces throughout Asia and the Pacific islands refused to surrender for months and years after, into the 1970s.
