Images: A historic look at V-J Day events from 1945
Posted August 15, 2020 1:00 am
On Aug. 14, 1945, the world was told that Japan had surrendered, a move that brought an end to World War II. Celebrations began on both Aug. 14 and Aug. 15 with those dates becoming known as "Victory over Japan Day" or V-J Day. The formal surrender took place on Sept. 2, 1945 on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
Three-year-old William Lee throws confetti from his flag-draped fire escape at 31 Mott Street in the Chinatown section of New York, after reports from Tokyo that the Japanese had accepted the American terms of surrender, Aug. 14, 1945. The tentative reports were incentive enough for William to start tossing the paper scraps.
Associated Press/Tom Fitzsimmons
Servicemen celebrate the announcement of the Japanese surrender with bottles of Three Feathers Whiskey in Washington, D.C., Aug. 14, 1945.
Associated Press
In this photo provided by the U.S. Marine Corps, a U.S. flag is lowered in the gathering dusk of V-J Day as a Marine kneels in silent prayer beside the grave of a comrade in the First Marine Division cemetery on Okinawa, Aug. 15, 1945.
Associated Press/U.S. Marines/Pfc. Sam Bushemi
Servicemen and women celebrate the announcement of the Japanese surrender in Washington, D.C., Aug. 14, 1945.
Associated Press
Paper litters Seventh Avenue at 35th Street in New York's Garment District as workers began celebrating after it was announced Japan had accepted the Allied surrender terms on Aug. 14, 1945.
Associated Press
Thousands jammed New York's Times Square after Pres. Harry Truman announced Japan's unconditional surrender, Aug. 14, 1945. There is a replica of the Statue of Liberty in front of One Times Square.
Associated Press
A jubilant crowd of American Italians are seen as they wave flags and toss papers in the air while celebrating Japan's unconditional surrender in their neighborhood in New York City, on August 14, 1945.
Associated Press
San Franciscans are shown celebrating the Japanese surrender, known as V-J Day, on August 14, 1945.
Associated Press/Ernest K. Bennett
German-American photographer and photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt poses at the opening on May 5, 1986 of an exhibition of his famous pictures taken for "Life" magazine at the Kultur Kontor der Hamburger Hanse Vier, in Hamburg, Germany, with one of his best know photographs taken during the celebrations of V-J Day in Times Square, New York on August 1945.
Associated Press/Jockel Finck
Thousands of jubilant people celebrate V-J Day as they gather on New York's Times Square, after the official announcement that the Japanese had accepted the terms of Potsdam and surrendered, hereby ending World War II, on August 15, 1945.
Associated Press
In this 1945 photo, a jubilant crowd dances on the White House lawn on V-J Day following Japan's surrender.
Library of Congress
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz pins the Navy Cross on Doris Miller at a ceremony onboard a U.S. Navy warship in Pearl Harbor on May 27, 1942. Miller manned a machine gun at Pearl Harbor and was the first African American awarded the Navy Cross for valor.
U.S. Navy/Library of Congress
Representatives of the Allied nations stand at attention as General Douglas MacArthur speaks, prior to the signing of the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri, Sept. 2, 1945.
Associated Press
This is the scene aboard the battleship USS Missouri as the Japanese surrender documents were signed in Tokyo Bay, Sept. 2, 1945.
Associated Press
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