Victory in August 1945: How Americans Celebrated the End of World War II

President Harry S. Truman reads Japan’s message agreeing to unconditional surrender, August 14, 1945. Harry S. Truman Library.

President Harry S. Truman watched the clock closely. The United States had agreed with its allies in London and Moscow to make the announcement at the same moment, and at exactly 7 p.m. Eastern War Time on August 14, 1945, he told the nation that Japan had answered the Allied demand for unconditional surrender. The emperor had accepted. The news came a few days after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the opening shots of the nuclear age. Truman named General Douglas MacArthur supreme commander in Japan and the Pacific, to accept the surrender formally.

"The War" was over

The joy that had broken out on May 8, when Truman announced Germany's unconditional surrender, broke out again, louder. The deadliest and most destructive war in history, remembered by generations simply as "The War", was over. Ships carrying veterans from Europe toward Japan could turn back, and the heavy casualties expected from an invasion of Japan's home islands would never come. Children would meet fathers, uncles and brothers they had never seen. Rationing of everything from gasoline to food would end, and so would blackouts and the constant watch for enemy planes and submarines.

New Yorkers in Little Italy celebrate the surrender, August 14, 1945. National Archives, Office of War Information photo.

The cost had been immense. Somewhere between 60 and 80 million people, depending on the data used, had died in battle, of starvation or disease, or as victims of crimes against humanity: about 3 percent of the world's population. About 420,000 Americans were among the dead, around three-tenths of one percent of the U.S. population, from nearly every city, town and rural area.

Allied prisoners of war at Aomori camp near Yokohama cheer their U.S. Navy rescuers, August 29, 1945. National Archives, U.S. Navy photo.

The celebrations

Within minutes of the announcement, people poured into the streets. About two million crowded into New York's Times Square for a celebration that lasted several days, with paper raining down, conga lines, and strangers kissing. The Chicago Tribune reported that a man climbed a ladder to light an 18-foot solid wax victory candle that had taken three months to make, and half a million people sang and danced through Chicago's Loop. Americans overseas celebrated too.

American servicemen and women celebrate outside the Rainbow Corner Red Cross club in Paris, August 15, 1945. National Archives, U.S. Army Signal Corps photo.

The official day of celebration was September 2, when Japan signed the surrender documents aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

MacArthur signs as Supreme Allied Commander aboard the USS Missouri. Behind him stand Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright of the United States and Lieutenant General Arthur Percival of Britain, both held prisoner by the Japanese. National Archives, U.S. Navy photo.

After the cheering

Beneath the joy lay unease. The sudden end of the war had opened the nuclear age, and with it the fear that the next war would be deadlier still. At home, factories that had turned out bombers, tanks and rifles went back to cars and household appliances, and to a new one that would change daily life: television. Returning soldiers and sailors married and started families, the parents of the "baby boomers", and the GI Bill helped them buy homes and go to college, until then mostly a privilege of the upper classes. Veterans looking for work and unions demanding higher wages brought labour unrest. The fighting, the account ends, was over. For now.

Sources

• Jim Worsham, editor of Prologue, "Victory! Americans Everywhere Celebrated the End of World War II in 1945," National Archives Pieces of History blog, based on his article in Prologue, Summer 2015; rewritten in hubnx's own words. Photos from the National Archives and the Truman Library; a 1945 newspaper front page is left out.