SATURDAY is the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Japan in World War II.

    The surrender of Japan was announced by Emperor Hirohito on Aug. 15, and formally signed Sept. 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Japanese navy was incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. While publicly stating their intent to fight on to the bitter end, Japan’s leaders (the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, also known as the “Big Six”) were privately making entreaties to the neutral Soviet Union to mediate peace on terms more favorable to the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Soviets were preparing to attack Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea in fulfillment of promises they had secretly made to the United States and the United Kingdom at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences.

    On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States detonated an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On Aug. 8, 1945, in accordance with the Yalta agreements, but in violation of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and soon after midnight Aug. 9, the Soviet Union invaded the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Later that same day, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb, this time on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Following these events, Emperor Hirohito intervened and ordered the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to accept the terms the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration for ending the war. After several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations, Emperor Hirohito gave a recorded radio address in which he announced the surrender of Japan on Aug. 15.(SD-Agencies)