Image Gallery: Victory in the Pacific
The surrender document signed in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945 is presented to President Harry S. Truman by Colonel Bernard Thielen on 7 September. Also present are (left to right): Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal; Secretary of War Henry Stimson; General George C. Marshall; Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King; Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson; General A. A. Vandegrift, USMC; Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy; and Lieutenant General Ira Eaker. Colonel Thielen had escorted the document during its flight from Japan (80-G-700890).
Japanese military and civilian envoys wait to board a USAAF C-54 aircraft at Ie Shima airfield, Ryukyu Islands, 19 August 1945. The delegation had come to Ie Shima from Japan in specially marked aircraft, en route to General MacArthur's headquarters in Manila to receive instructions concerning surrender and occupation arrangements. The officer in the center foreground is the delegation's head, Lieutenant General Torashiro Kawabe, deputy chief of the Japanese army general staff (NH-62866).