Japan Under Seige

Early in 1945, the battle for the Japanese homeland began. American bombers hit industrial targets, and warships pounded Japanese coastal cities. American submarines cut off the shipping of vital supplies to Japan. On August 6, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare on the city of Hiroshima. Two days later, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria and Korea. The next day, U.S. fliers dropped a second and larger atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

Japan agreed to surrender on August 14. The next day, Emperor Hirohito announced to the Japanese people that Japan had agreed to end the war. On Sept. 2, 1945, Japanese officials officially surrendered aboard the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

As a result of the war, Japan lost all its territory on the mainland of Asia. It also lost all the islands it had governed in the Pacific. The nation kept only its four main islands and the small islands nearby. In the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's the United States returned to Japan the Bonin Islands, Iwo Jima, and the Ryukyu Islands. Russia still occupies the Kuril Islands.