The world’s deadliest war ended on Aug. 14, 1945, which was 80 years ago today.
World War II began on Sept. 1, 1939, with Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland, prompting Great Britain and France to declare war on Adolf Hitler’s regime.
Meanwhile, halfway around the globe, Japan was already years into its war with China, and in September 1940, it entered into a Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy.
The United States entered the war in December 1941 following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and Nazi Germany’s declaration of war against America.
The U.S. adopted a Europe-first strategy, identifying Hitler’s Germany as the most powerful foe, and together with the Russians, British, Canadians, and French, defeated the Nazis in May 1945.
That still left the war raging with Japan in the Pacific Theater, which had primarily been the responsibility of the American military to prosecute, with some strong assistance by Australia.
U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur and Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz oversaw the war effort in the Pacific.
In October 1944, MacArthur fulfilled his famous “I shall return” pledge, successfully landing with a large amphibious force on Leyte Island in the Philippines, and by the summer of 1945, he had completely liberated the archipelago from Japanese control.
To the north, in what was called the Central Pacific Theater, Nimitz’s forces engaged in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war, which took place on the Japanese islands of Iwo Jima in February and March and on Okinawa beginning in April 1945.
The U.S. Marines lost more soldiers in the first six months of 1945 than in the previous three years of the war combined, and most of the deaths came on Okinawa, the southernmost of the five main islands that make up Japan.
When the battle ended on June 22, the United States counted 12,500 military personnel dead and 36,500 wounded, while the Japanese suffered approximately 110,000 dead soldiers and an additional 40,000 to 150,000 civilians killed, according to History.com.
The enemy also employed kamikaze planes in the battle. The suicide pilots flying the explosive-laden aircraft managed to sink 36 U.S. Navy ships and damage 368 others.
Ataque Kamikaze sobre el portaaviones USS Bunker Hill durante la Batalla de Okinawa. pic.twitter.com/kPhKxP6qMF
— Historia Naval 2GM (@SgmNaval) May 30, 2025
All of this weighed heavily on the minds of President Harry Truman, MacArthur, Nimitz, and other top brass in the Pentagon as they planned for the invasion and occupation of Japan’s most populous islands of Kyushu and Honshu, where Tokyo is located.
“Truman … is looking at Okinawa. Before, in the war on Japan, we were killing almost 10 Japanese for every one of our guys that got killed,” James Zobel, director of the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia, told The Western Journal in 2020. “But you get to Iwo [Jima] and Okinawa, and it flips. We’re taking immense casualties.”
When Truman asked Army Chief of Staff George Marshall to give an estimate of how many American dead and wounded would be suffered in the upcoming invasion, the general told him that it would be a minimum of a quarter million Americans alone, but could be as many as a million.
MacArthur believed that the Japanese would likely suffer millions killed if previous experience held true. Ahead of the proposed invasion, the U.S. had already lost over 418,000 dead, and the world lost 60 million people, including civilians, according to the National WWII Museum.
Neither MacArthur nor Nimitz knew that the United States had been developing a new weapon, the atomic bomb, which, if successful, could potentially end the war without the costly invasion. The military leaders were not told about it until just before its use, in the event the bomb failed.
Before deploying the weapon, the U.S. sent a message to Japan calling for its unconditional surrender, but Tokyo refused.
On Aug. 6, 1945, at Truman’s direction, the United States dropped the bomb on the military-industrial city of Hiroshima. An estimated 80,000 of the city’s 400,000 inhabitants perished in a blazing inferno. Another 60,000 would die from the effects of the fallout by the end of the year.
The Allies again called for the Japanese to surrender. When no word was received, the United States dropped another atomic bomb on Aug. 9, this time on Nagasaki, which decimated the city and killed approximately 70,000 more inhabitants.
Still, there was no word of surrender, so the United States recommenced the bombing of Tokyo. Finally, on Aug. 15 (Aug. 14 in the U.S.), Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced to his people and the world the surrender of the nation.
Kissing Sailor George Mendonsa on the “VJ Day in Times Square”: https://t.co/A4SgjizHxQ pic.twitter.com/jEJtBmEUBQ
— American Veterans Center (@AVCupdate) August 14, 2017
Truman told the American people via radio the night of Aug. 14, “I have received this afternoon a message from the Japanese Government… I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan.”
“General Douglas MacArthur has been appointed the Supreme Allied Commander to receive the Japanese surrender,” he added.
Truman designated Aug. 15, 1945, as V-J Day, victory over Japan.
MacArthur presided over the Japanese surrender on board the USS Missouri battleship in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, with representatives from allies Great Britain, Russia, France, China, and Australia, among others, on hand.
MacArthur addressed the American people via radio after the ceremony.
“Today, the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won,” he said. “The skies no longer rain death, the seas bear only commerce, men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission is completed.”
“As I look back on the long, tortuous trail [from the beginning of the war], when an entire world lived in fear, when democracy was on the defensive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that he has given us the faith, the courage, and the power from which to mold victory,” the general continued.
MacArthur concluded by extolling the virtues of the American soldier and sailor.
“And so, my fellow countrymen, today I report to you that your sons and daughters have served you well and faithfully with the calm, deliberate, determined spirit of the American soldier and sailor based on the tradition of historical truth, as against the fanaticism of an enemy supported only by mythological fiction,” he said.
On this day in 1945, Japan surrenders unconditionally to the Allies. World War Two is over. pic.twitter.com/jYJA4aAkVa
— Military History Now (@MilHistNow) August 15, 2020
“Their spiritual strength and power has brought us through to victory. They are homeward bound — take care of them.”
Randy DeSoto is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” about the importance of faith in God during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II.
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