Today marks 80 years since the official end of the Second World War, when a delegation from Japan formally signed the declaration of surrender aboard the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay.
This event brought to end a conflict in which the Royal Navy had been deployed continuously across the breadth of the world’s oceans and seas. Its operations had included fighting the U-Boat peril in the North Atlantic and contributing a carrier fleet to the war in the Pacific theatre in the closing months of the conflict. Coastal forces operated around the waters of Britain and in the Mediterranean, and the Submarine Service was present in every theatre of war.
Through the course of the war the Royal Navy suffered the loss of 278 warships, over 1,000 smaller vessels, and over 51,000 sailors, marines, and WRNS. The Merchant Navy lost of 30,000 of its mariners to hostile action during the conflict.
In the immediate aftermath of the cessation of hostilities in the Far East, the pressing concerns of Britain’s leaders were the return of prisoners of war and overseas territories which had been under occupation for several years. This was a delicate operation, as the drive up the island chain towards the Japanese Home Islands had left many of these garrisons relatively untouched.
In the following letter, a naval officer from HMS Swiftsure describes the action taken to reclaim the prized colonial possession of Hong Kong, which provides a vivid impression of the first contact with prisoners of war who had been isolated from civilisation for several years
n.d., September 1945
… On the forenoon of 30 August Admiral Harcourt decided to go in. He came aboard Swiftsure at 1100 and with everyone at Action Stations we went through the Lie Mun Pass at 1145. Batteries on the heights of the many small islands could be discerned quite easily. Apart from a few meaningless flags at local signal stations, our entry was uneventful.
We were astern of D27 in Kempenfelt and had scores of fighters overhead that seemed cross at finding no opposition. Euryalus followed us in and we both anchored off a badly battered dockyard at 1230, to disgorge about 500 Seamen and Marines. They went ashore with our Commander in charge. Leading a troop of bloodthirsty Royal Marines armed to the proverbial teeth, he was greeted on the jetty by the resourceful Commander Craven (PoW) and a benign Japanese officer, hissing gently, and the last British Governor’s ADC (PoW) called MacGregor. By sunset the yard was completely occupied and aboard we felt reasonably secure. . . .
. . . .I spent the next two hours talking to a bunch of ex-PoWs who had just come out of a camp on the mainland called Shan Shio Po. Pretty groggy on their feet, rather haggard to look at, they were eager for news out of England more than anything else. They had never heard of Radar, V2s, Buzzbombs or jet propulsion and I had to explain them all very slowly indeed. . . .
[Feature Image: Flying the flag of Rear Admiral C H J Harcourt, CB, CBE RN, cruiser HMS SWIFTSURE steams into Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, heading other major units of the British Naval Force that reclaimed the Crown Colony from the Japanese on 30 August 1945. IWM (A 30539), used under Non-Commercial Licence]