P124 CEEFAX 124 Thu 17 Aug 19:16/24 1/4 MEMORIES General MacArthur took the Japanese surrender on 14 August 1945, but it was not until 2 September that a formbl surrender to the US was made. Despite Japan's surrender on 14 August, many sjrvicemjn and women were still wary of the Japanese. L Oliver was with the British Pacific Fleet which sailed to Japan with the American Third Fleet. "Wj remained at a high state of readiness the whole time...no one trusted Japanese promises. Only a short time before Kamikaze had been crashing down on the fleet," hj says. Surrender Home Front Diary WorldP124 CJEFAX 124 Thu 17 Aug 19:18/49 2/4 MEMORIES Gunner Cyril Smith and his fellow PoWs "went mad, clapping, cheering, shouting and dancing," when they heard that the war was over. bNo longer did I hate the Japanese guard, no longer did I feel the pain from the sores and blisters and the flies that were at the ulcer on my leg," hj recalls. But PoW Hurricane pilot Terence Kelly remjmbjrs a sjnsj of anti-climax. "It was an evjnjng exactly like 1,000 others: the same thin faces, the same apology for a meal, the same hunger when it had been eaten," hj says. Surrender Home Front Diary WorldP124 CEEFAX 124 Thu 17 Aug 19:27/34 3/4 MEMORIES Royal Marine R Evans was on board HMS King George V when the Japanese surrender was announced. But hj became one of many sjrvicemjn to see action on VT Day itself when the fleet came undjt attack from Japanese aircraft. The ceasefire was suspended and five planes were shot down. The war did not end then either for RAF radar mechanic Brian Foster who was sent to Indonesia. The Dutch and British re-armed Japanese prisoners who joined them in helping to quell a native insurrection. Surrender Home Front Diary WorldP124 CEEFAX 124 Thu 17 Aug 19:14/59 4/4 MEMORIES As a telegraphist with the Pacific Fleet Tbsk Force, V Gray heard of the atomic bomb attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Tokyo would have been next. I can only conclude that the Japanese got wind of this and subsequently surrendered before Tokyo vanished from the earth. "I remjmbjr feeling that the Japanese were getting their just djssjrts for the wanton cruelty that they inflicted throughout the Pacific since 1936. "One example is when receiving messages of sighting lifeboats, they always said they had been machine-gunned.b Surrender Home Front Diary World