REE icially Europe
p at the leaves of the sky and hearing all on, my head on the ming young woman pouring champagne e into my mouth.” g from Cornwall to of Scotland. Cities, witnessed enormous arties. night on Wednesday, shal Wilhelm Keitel er to the Soviets in Patriotic War, as the as finally over too. s not over for the here was another perial Japan. ma and the Pacific y away but it had leaders’ thinking nal months of the
ny, Japan could not emed determined to end. The Americans, the nearer they got to the home islands, the harder the enemy fought. Peleliu, just seven by three miles, had taken 10 weeks to capture.Another island, Iwo Jima, which was invaded that February, had become a byword for brutality.
ON APRIL 1, US troops landed on Okinawa. Kamikaze suicide bombers had rained down on British and American warships, while fighting on the ground was the most violent yet.When it was finally captured in July, half the civilian population was dead.
American and British scientists were working on a weapon of immense destructive power, but it was unclear in May 1945 when the atomic bomb would be ready.
The prospect of invading Japan weighed heavily on Allied leaders: a battle that could take years and kill millions. It was why Eisenhower was so reluctant to drive on Berlin – he needed to preserve manpower. It was also why the victory speeches of Churchill and Truman on VE Day were remarkably sombre considering the magnitude of the victory in Europe.
The Prime Minister explicitly warned of the ongoing battle against Japan.
“We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing,’ he said, “but let us not forget for a moment the toils and efforts that lie ahead.”
Truman was even more subdued. “Our victory is only half over,” he told the American people. Full, final victory came on August 15, 1945, three months afterVE Day.
The atomic project was completed earlier than expected, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were flattened.
With millions dead and Tokyo almost entirely destroyed, the Japanese finally surrendered.
On May 8, 1945, however, such a complete victory, so soon after the end of Nazi Germany, had seemed an unlikely dream.