The March to VJ Day: VJ Day and the end of the Second World War

While the war in Europe was won, there was still work to do in Asia. Discover the story of VJ Day and how the Second World War finally ended here.

VJ Day

The Far East Campaign: Turning the Tide

Image: From left to right: Group Captain D.O. Finlay, Air Vice Marshal S.F Vincent, and General Bill Slim, watching planes take off in operations in Burma (IWM (CF 325))

By 1942, Imperial Japanese forces occupied vast swathes of the Pacific and Southeast Asia and had captured China’s eastern seaboard. Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong and more had all fallen under Japanese control, with its territory stretching from the borders of the Soviet Union to Indonesia and New Guinea.

Despite these early stunning successes, Imperial Japanese victory was not total. The army had become bogged down in a bitter, grinding war in China. Out at sea, a resurgent American Pacific fleet, was wreaking havoc on the Imperial Japanese Navy while the US Army and Marines were making progress with their island-hopping campaign.

In India, Commonwealth forces from Burma were rebuilt, while new units of the Indian Army were raised and reinforced by British and African units. British and Indian forces that had been forced to retreat had been retooled and reinvigorated under General Bill Slim, which would pay dividends come campaigning season. Elsewhere, Australian troops had forged a foothold on the island of New Guinea. 

Overstretched and being worn down on all fronts, Imperial Japan was facing a reckoning.

Burma

Image: 11th East African Division on the road to Kalewa, Burma (© IWM SE 1884)

After a series of disastrous defeats early in the Far East Campaign, with Commonwealth units forced back into India, British and Indian Army commanders slowly learned how to fight the Japanese on their own terms.

In late 1942 and 1943, stalled operations were launched into Arakan Province in Western Burma (present-day Myanmar). At the same time, specially-raised, long-range scouting units, known as the Chindits, were deployed behind enemy lines.

While limited in their effectiveness, these operations were crucial in understanding how to fight effectively in the deep Burmese jungle.

In early 1944, another advance in Arakan was met by a Japanese counterattack, but despite being surrounded, Commonwealth forces held firm at the Battle of the Admin Box.

Further north, Japanese forces launched an invasion into India but were repulsed following the battles of Imphal and Kohima. The battles on the Indian Frontier are considered some of the greatest in British Military history, stopping dead the Japanese invasion of India and essentially putting them on the back foot for the rest of the war.

Commonwealth forces counterattacked, quickly retaking Burma and reaching the capital Rangoon on 1 May 1945, despite battling both the remaining Japanese forces in Burma and the torrential monsoon weather.

Japanese forces attempted to retreat into Thailand but were caught at the Battle of Sittang Bend in July and virtually destroyed.

Commonwealth forces were now poised to invade Malaya (present-day Malaysia) and recapture Singapore.

New Guinea and the Solomon Islands

Image:  A Fijian medical orderly administers an emergency plasma transfusion to a wounded comrade (© IWM NZ 1445)

In its early conquests, Imperial Japan had captured the islands of New Britain, New Ireland, and Bougainville. Much of the British Solomon Islands, as far as Guadalcanal, also fell under Japanese control. The northeast coast of the Australian-administered New Guinea was invaded, too.

At great cost, the Japanese invasion force was stopped short of New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby in southeast Papua New Guinea by American and Australian naval forces at the Battle of the Coral Sea. The risk of a Japanese invasion of Australia was significantly reduced.

Japan garrisoned its captured islands while simultaneously attempting to seize Port Moresby via the mountainous Kokoda Trail. In densely jungled mountainous terrain, Australian, Papuan and later US forces fought a desperate battle to repulse Japanese attacks, greatly aided by locally raised labourers, porters, and stretcher-bearers.

In August 1942, a US-led force invaded Guadalcanal to capture the under-construction Japanese airfield being built there. This marked a strategic shift in the Pacific War. Now, the Allies were on the offensive, having weathered the initial storm.

Japanese forces were reinforced and counterattacked on land and sea, beginning a long, bitter struggle for island chains dotted along the Pacific Rim.

In 1943, the Allies invaded Bougainville. 

Launching an amphibious landing supported by sea and airpower, Allied troops pushed inland. They were met by fanatical Japanese resistance from the island’s reinforced garrison. As had been the case on each island so far, retaking Bougainville would take a bitter, costly campaign.

Allied forces were still fighting on Bougainville in June 1944 when a Commonwealth patrol was ambushed near Mawaraka. Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu came to their aid.

Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu VC

Image: Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu  (Republic of Fiji Military Forces Archive)

At the time of the action at Mawaraka, Sefanaia was 24 years old. He came from Yacata, Fiji and had worked as a carpenter before enlisting in 1942 with his older brother.

His name Sukanaivalu means “return from war”, as he was named after his island chief, whose return from fighting in France during the First World War in 1918 coincided with Sefanaia’s birth.

Under heavy fire, Sefanaia crawled forward along the jungle track to rescue two wounded men before crawling on to a third. 

On his return, Sefanaia was hit and fell to the ground, unable to move further. Several attempts were made to rescue him despite Sefanaia’s protests as to the danger. 

Realising that the men would not withdraw without him, Sefanaia raised himself up in front of the Japanese machine gun and was killed, deliberately sacrificing his own life to preserve those of his men.

For his heroism and self-sacrifice, he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. 

After the war, his grave was brought to CWGC Rabaul (Bita Paka) War Cemetery, Papua New Guinea. He is one of 117 Fijian servicemen of the Second World War commemorated by the CWGC.

The War at Sea

Image: Japanese aircraft carrier Shoho under attack by US aircraft (Australian War Memorial)

The Far East Campaign was as much a naval war as a land-based conflict. With Japanese forces scattered across various island chains throughout the Pacific, and the sheer size of the ocean, navies played a vital role in ferrying troops to combat theatres, supplying them, and clashing with rival fleets on the high seas.

This led to the development of new tactics and the rise in strategic and tactical importance of aircraft carriers. The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first naval action that relied totally on carrier-based aircraft to strike the enemy, something that would become commonplace in the Pacific Theatre.

In June 1942, having broken Japanese naval codes, US forces successfully ambushed the Japanese fleet heading for the US airfield at Midway. With US carrier-borne aircraft sinking four Japanese fleet carriers, the Battle of Midway is considered a major turning point in the Pacific War.

Midway was followed by a series of smaller actions off the Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz Islands as the battle for Guadalcanal continued. 

At this time, the US Navy began an advance across the central Pacific. US forces secured isolated islands to use as bases for an attack on mainland Japan.

Beneath the waves, Allied submarines, predominantly American, wreaked havoc on Japanese shipping. With few natural resources, Japan was reliant on seaborne cargo from its conquered territories to feed its war machine. 

US submarines alone sank 4.7 million tons of Japanese shipping during the Second World War. They accounted for 1,300 Japanese merchant vessels and 200 warships. 

British and Australian submarine flotillas operating in the Far East were much smaller than their US counterparts, but still played a substantial supporting role in the submarine campaign.

For example, British submarines sank over 40 Japanese troop carriers, with 33 suffering casualties of 1,000 or more. As Japanese garrisons were spread across the Pacific, cutting them off from reinforcement by sinking troop transporters was an important aspect of Allied submarine operations.

In June 1944, the US Navy engaged the Japanese fleet at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, inflicting heavy casualties and sinking vital aircraft carriers, opening the way for the invasion of the Philippines. Japanese naval forces tried to counterattack but were resoundingly defeated and permanently crippled at the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Beginning of the end

Image: A small section of the British Pacific Fleet (© IWM A 30072)

By 1945, the net was drawing in on Japan. 

US Marines seized Iwo Jima in late January 1945 and landed on Okinawa on 1 March.

The Royal Navy had been occupied by the war against Germany, but following D-Day, the threat at sea was much reduced. The British Pacific Fleet was formed and sailed to Australia early in 1945 to prepare for the invasion of Japan. 

The largest and most powerful British Fleet ever assembled, it was nevertheless still dwarfed by the vast US Navy. In August 1945, the fleet started launching attacks on Japanese shipping and targets on the home islands.

On the morning of 9 August, Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray took off from the carrier H.M.S. Formidable to attack Japanese warships in Onagawa Wan (Bay).

Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray VC

Image: Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray VC (www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca)

Robert, aged 27, was born in Canada, the son of a Boer war veteran, and had enlisted in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1940.
 
He was an accomplished pilot who had been Mentioned in Dispatches for his part in attacking the German battleship Tirpitz and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his part in sinking a Japanese destroyer near Tokyo on 28 July.

During the attack on Onagawa Wan, facing fire from shore batteries and five warships, Lieutenant Gray flew very low in order to ensure success. Although he was hit and his aircraft was in flames, he was able to sink a destroyer, before crashing into the sea. Lieutenant Gray was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

His Medal Citation gives the following details:

“For great valour in leading an attack on a Japanese destroyer in Onagawa Wan, on 9 August 1945.

“In the face of fire from shore batteries and a heavy concentration of fire from some five warships Lieutenant Gray pressed home his attack, flying very low in order to ensure success, and, although he was hit and his aircraft was in flames, he obtained at least one direct hit, sinking the destroyer.

“Lieutenant Gray has consistently shown a brilliant fighting spirit and most inspiring leadership.”

Robert was one of the last Canadians killed in the Second World War. He was also the war’s final Canadian Victoria Cross.

Like many of those who served with the Commonwealth naval forces, Lieutenant Gray has no known grave. Instead, his name is inscribed on a memorial not in Southeast Asia but in his home country. For Robert, this means the CWGC Halifax Memorial in Canada. 

Those who served with the Royal Navy are commemorated on three memorials at Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth, which also honour Australian naval dead. Naval aviators of the Fleet Air Arm are named on the CWGC Lee-on-Solent Memorial.

Borneo

Image: Matilda II tank & troops of the Australian 9th Division near Victoria, Labuan (Australian War Memorial)

The last major offensive of the war by the Western Allies was on the island of Borneo.

On 1 May 1945, the I Australian Corps, which included two US regiments, landed on the island of Tarakan, off the northeast coast of Borneo. Their objective was the island’s airfield.

Corporal John Mackey VC

Image: Corporal John Mackey VC (Australian War Memorial)

One of those taking part in the landings was Corporal John Mackey. 

Despite being only 25, John was a five-year veteran, having falsified his age in order to enlist in June 1940. He had served in North Africa, Syria, Papua and New Guinea.
 
John’s unit landed at Lingkas Beach on Tarakan before advancing inland along the Aman River. The battalion was held up by a Japanese strongpoint known as ‘Helen’, which John's company attacked on 12 May. 

Corporal Mackey led his men along a narrow ridge under fire from three Japanese machine guns. John charged the positions, fighting with rifle, bayonet, grenades and submachine gun, silencing two of them before being killed while attacking the third. 

Despite John’s bravery, the Japanese held out for two more days before ‘Helen’ was bombed. John was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

He was buried near where he fell, but after the war was moved to CWGC Labuan War Cemetery.

Once taken, the Allies used the airfield at Tarakan to support landings at Labuan Island and Brunei Bay on 10 June, and Balikpapan on 1 July. Japanese troops, though outnumbered, put up a determined resistance, fighting as they retreated into the interior of the island.

Labuan War Cemetery, the only Commonwealth war cemetery on Borneo, was begun in 1945 by medical units of the Australian 9th Division. 

It contains the graves of over 2,000 Commonwealth servicemen, while the CWGC Labuan Memorial lists the names of over 2,300 servicemen who have no known grave; testament to the ferocity of the fighting and the brutal treatment of Allied POWs by the Japanese.

“I am Become Death”

Image: The devastated city of Hiroshima after being hit by the first atomic bomb (© IWM MH 2629)

By mid-1945, the Allies had fought their way to within sight of the Japanese mainland and began preparations for an invasion, scheduled for November. The human cost of the fighting to that point had, however, been terrible, as the Japanese had fought fanatically defending the ground they ceded.

Bombing by Allied air forces had reduced many Japanese cities to rubble, while Allied naval forces cut off vital imports of food, oil, and other important supplies. Despite their desperate situation, the Japanese government refused to surrender. 

A joint declaration by the Allies at the Potsdam conference in July went unanswered:

"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."

Prompt and utter destruction swiftly followed.

On 6 August 1945, the US Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing at least 70-80,000 people. Developed in secret, the weapon heralded a new age of unimaginable destruction.

On 8 August, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and the following day invaded Manchuria. The following day, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing over 35,000 people in the initial blast and thousands more over the following weeks and months from radiation.

An unexpected casualty was Corporal Ronald Francis Shaw of the RAF. 

Corporal Ronald Francis Shaw 

Image: Corporal Ronald Francis Shaw (Nagasaki Peace Museum)

Ronald had been captured on Java in 1942 following the crash of his aircraft. He was held there for a time before being transported to Japan, during which voyage he is thought to have survived the sinking of the Tamahoko Maru by a US submarine in June 1944. 

Of the 770 POWs onboard, only 212 survived. They were brought to Fukuoka 14 prison camp in Nagasaki, which housed some 440 Allied POWs. 

Ronald was put to work in the shipyard’s iron foundry.

The camp was far enough away from the epicentre of the explosion to avoid the firestorm, but close enough to be caught in the blast/shockwave. 

Ronald is believed to have been crushed under a collapsing wall. 

A number of Dutch and American POWs are also believed to have been killed as result of the explosion. Ronald was cremated, and after the war, his ashes were interred at CWGC Yokohama War Cemetery in Japan.

Surrender

Image: Representatives of the Empire of Japan stand aboard USS Missouri prior to signing of the Instrument of Surrender (Army Signal Corps - Naval Historical Center Photo # USA C-2719)

Faced with the devastation of the bombings and the Soviet Union’s entry into the war, the Japanese Emperor broadcast the country’s surrender to the Allies on 15 August. The formal Instrument of Surrender was signed on 2 September 1945, on the battleship USS Missouri, in Tokyo Bay.

A World War that had begun six long years ago in Poland, eight years for the people of China, was finally over. The cost in human life had spiralled into the tens of millions. 

Now began the post-war process of mourning; of coming to terms with the enormous destruction wrought upon Asia and the wider world; of counting the cost of victory.

Liberation or reoccupation?

Following Japan’s surrender, Commonwealth naval forces were quickly dispatched to the territories of Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) and French Indochina (modern-day Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) – all still occupied by Japanese forces.
 
They aimed to liberate Allied POWs and civilian internees, but also to re-establish Western imperial control over Southeast Asia. 

This re-imposition of Western rule caused tensions with local pro-independence movements, many of whom had fought as guerrillas against the Japanese. It would lead to open conflict in the Dutch East Indies, French Indochina and British Malaya.

Eventually, these movements would coalesce into national independence efforts, as local populations regained control of their homelands from their former imperial overlords.

Prisoners of War

Image: A group of recently released British prisoners of war march toward an airfield in Thailand. While they seem in good spirits, thousands of men suffered terribly at the hands of their captors, bearing physical and emotional scars for life (IWM (SE 4746)

Japanese authorities had not followed the 1929 Geneva Convention concerning prisoners of war: they did not confirm how many were held or who or where they were; food and medicine were withheld; people were beaten, tortured, and used as disposable forced labour.

Allied prisoner recovery teams were prepared for poor conditions, but the extent of the malnourishment and illness only became clear when camps were found. 

When the advanced team parachuted into Sumatra and saw the surviving prisoners, they signalled that the task was immense and thousands of lives hung in the balance. Food, doctors and medical supplies were needed immediately. 

By the end of October 1945, some 71,000 liberated prisoners and internees had been evacuated from Southeast Asia from over 250 camps, with over 20,000 more still to come. Some were too weak and sick to recover and would not survive the journey home. Many others would suffer life-long effects from their years in captivity.

Commemoration and remembrance in the Far East

Image: A bird's eye view of the Rangoon Memorial and Taukkyan War Cemetery

Following peace, the then-Imperial War Graves Commission entered a new phase of work. Graves scattered across the islands and battlefields of the Far East were brought in with new cemeteries and memorials designed and built to commemorate hundreds of thousands of servicemen lost in the war.

While the living were located and helped, the graves of the dead were sought and recorded.

With the help of former POWs, records kept in secret during captivity, and some information from Japanese authorities, British and Australian Army Graves Service teams looked for scattered graves and visited cemeteries that POWs had made for their comrades. 

In consultation with the War Graves Commission, sites were chosen for permanent cemeteries and graves brought together to create them. It was then the turn of the Commission to take these sites and make them into beautiful, contemplative spaces, with fine architecture and horticulture.

Our archive offers a peek into this work and its challenges, as the Commission created a new canvas for commemoration in a new part of the world.

Taukkyan War Cemetery & The Rangoon Memorial

Image: Including burials and those commemorated on the Rangoon Memorial, over 33,000 servicemen are commemorated at this site

The war left graves in many parts of Burma, and many Commonwealth servicemen with no known grave. Because of prolonged post-war unrest, considerable delay occurred before the Army Graves Service were able to complete its work. 

In 1951, Taukkyan was chosen for a cemetery to be made by bringing four battlefield cemeteries together. The graves were placed into four plots, keeping men grouped by original cemetery.

The Rangoon Memorial, for the names of almost 27,000 servicemen who died during the campaigns in Burma and have no known grave, was placed in the centre of the cemetery. The circular rotunda in the middle allows the inscription – ‘They died for all free men’ – to appear in five languages in positions of equal importance.

Kanchanaburi & Chungkai War Cemeteries

Image: Wooden crosses in Chungkai, September 1945. (AWM P02310.12)

Prisoners of war began both of these cemeteries, burying their dead comrades in captivity.

When War Graves Commissioner Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore visited these cemeteries in January 1947, his tour diary records that it took four hours on a bad road, with no rest house or hotel for visitors: ‘Accessibility for relatives bad…Both cemeteries very isolated.’

Image: Chungkai War Cemetery in the present day

He understood the ‘sentimental’ reasons for their location, but his concerns about accessibility prompted him to recommend that these cemeteries not be made permanent. 

This might surprise some of the thousands of visitors who come to pay their respects in these beautiful places today.

Among those buried at Kanchanaburi and Chungkai are those who lost their lives working on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway.

Tens of thousands of Allied servicemen were worked to death in appalling conditions, alongside hundreds of thousands of locally-raised slave labourers, to construct this rail route. It is one of the most notorious episodes of the Far East Campaign, and has been immortalised in countless books, films and plays, not least the world-famous Bridge over the River Kwai.

Together, over 8,000 Commonwealth and Dutch soldiers are commemorated at Chungkai and Kanchanaburi.

Kranji War Cemetery & the Singapore Memorial

Image: The Singapore Memorial overlooking Kranji War Cemetery

Colin St Clair Oakes was the Commission’s Principal Architect for Southeast Asia. He had served in the war and would now play a key role in the creation of places to remember fellow servicemen.

Singapore needed a large cemetery to be the focus of remembrance there, and to make a home for graves from small cemeteries around the island. 

A memorial was needed also, for the names of more than 24,000 Commonwealth servicemen and women who had no known grave. Finding a location was challenging. 

In January 1946 St Clair Oakes visited the small POW cemetery at Kranji, writing of graves ‘sandwiched together in neat, orderly rows in an old rubber plantation’ but he thought that overall, the ‘situation [was] not exceptional.’

The preferred site at Changi could not be kept for a cemetery as the airport needed to expand; Kranji became the best place to build the cemetery and memorial. 

Those who visit can attest that St Clair Oakes and the CWGC transformed this ‘not exceptional’ site. Beautifully planted rows of headstones girdle a slope crowned by the Singapore Memorial, whose design calls to mind all three of the fighting services - a fitting place to remember thousands who died in the Second World War in the Far East Campaign. 

eXPERIENCE VJ Day with Commonwealth War Graves

As we approach the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, we consider the impact today of one of the most gruelling campaigns of the Second World War. Commonwealth forces from across the then British Empire came together to fight in Southeast Asia - representing an enormously broad and diverse section of society, fighting for the freedom and values we enjoy today.

Join us for events, blogs, and virtual tours that help tell the story of the final months of this world-changing conflict, and how the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission hasn’t stopped since then.