11/15/2025
Remembering the end of World War II, 80 years later
By Gunner Holley
Today, September 2, we commemorate the 80th anniversary of VJ (Victory over Japan) Day, and the end of the Second World War. In 1945, a brief 23 minutes brought about the end of eight long years of combat, when representatives from both Allied nations and Japan met in Tokyo Bay, aboard the USS Missouri. Of course, Japan’s defeat had not been a quick or easy affair, eight years of warfare had preceded this moment, beginning in 1937 with the Second Sino-Japanese War.
The Second Sino-Japanese War saw Japan attempt to conquer China for land and resources. As a result, the United States, a major exporter of natural resources to Japan at the time, put in place an embargo to bring the war to an end. Despite the financial and logistical damage this did to Japan, it would ultimately fail to halt the Japanese war effort. This, and several other reasons, would also lead to the decision to bomb Pearl Harbor, thus turning a regional conflict on the mainland of Asia into a major part of the already raging Second World War. Following both participants’ entries into WW2, Japan would go on a rampage, taking massive swathes of territory across Southeast Asia and the Pacific throughout Early 1942. The Philippines, Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Singapore, Burma, French Indochina (now Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam), Siam (now Thailand), and Papua New Guinea faced a Japanese Blitzkrieg.
Victory after victory on both land and sea had emboldened Japan further, but the winds of fate were beginning to change by the middle of 1942 with the Battle of the Coral Sea. While Japan had won a tactical victory in sinking USS Lexington (CV-2) and heavily damaging USS Yorktown (CV-5), they had lost strategically, having been thwarted in their attempts to launch a naval invasion of Port Moresby, meaning the Japanese army would have to continue slugging it out with the ANZACS across Papua New Guinea. This battle was the first time a Japanese invasion had been successfully defeated, shaking the thought of Japanese invincibility. Japan would likely have been able to recover from such a defeat if it weren’t for the Battle of Midway shortly after. Midway truly turned the tables on Japan, losing 4 aircraft carriers in a matter if hours.
From there, America would begin an island-hopping campaign starting with the Battle of Guadalcanal, taking back the Pacific, island by island. Fighting was often brutal and bloody, with Japanese forces routinely choosing to fight to the very end, even if all seemed lost. Nonetheless, American forces continued strategically crossing the Pacific, from the Gilbert, Marshall and Mariana Islands to the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. These battles, alongside naval engagements such as the Battle of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf saw Japan’s capability to resist American power crumble. Increasingly desperate measures were put in place at every turn, the most famous of which being the kamikaze, pilots who’d intentionally dive their aircraft into allied ships, laden with bombs and fuel.
It seemed that regardless of the circumstances, Japan would continue resisting no matter how overwhelmed they became, that was until the summer of 1945. By then, Japan was all but drained dry of its natural resources, and the seas were blocked by allied forces, preventing anything from being imported from whatever overseas territories they still held. While the empire prepared itself for a potential naval invasion on the Japanese homeland, the war and Europe had come to an end, leaving the Soviet Union to turn east, having agreed to take the fight to Japan, and beginning a massive invasion into Manchuria. If this wasn’t bad enough, several hours after the invasion, America used an atomic bomb to strike the city of Nagasaki, while having done the same to Hiroshima 3 days prior. These two near-simultaneous actions were the final straws that broke Japan’s back. Japan was devastated beyond a doubt; her people were starving, her ability to fight ceased to exist, and an American mainland invasion seemed almost imminent. When Japanese leadership gathered to discuss surrender, they found themselves locked in a stalemate, despite how dire their situation was. In the end, Emperor Hirohito had to be brought in to end the deadlock. He decided that peace was the best option.
And so, the largest, deadliest conflict in human history ended not with the roar of gunfire, or the din of artillery, but the scratching of pens on paper. The world would need time to heal, but this was a start; it was a chance for the world to heal from global conflict. While we largely see WW2 as little more than a distant memory now, at the time its weight was carried by everybody. Even here in New Jersey, the war touched the lives of families whose sons or fathers had left Picatinny Arsenal to serve in the Pacific, such as Lt. Edgar Titus, Torpedoman 2nd Class, Carl G. Tillman Jr., and PFC Joseph A. Machinshok. Lt. Edgar Titus was a Metal Components Branch Employee before joining the war and commanding a 155mm battery during the Battle of Guadalcanal, sinking an enemy troop transport and heavily damaging another. He’d return from the Pacific on the 1st of November 1943. Tillman and Machinshok, a technical division draftsman and an explosives operator/gang boss of the loading division respectively, both served during the Battle of Okinawa. With great sadness, I must say that neither of them made it home.
The sacrifices of men like Titus, Tillman, and Machinshok were part of the greatest struggles the world has ever seen, a struggle that General Douglas MacArthur himself reflected on in his broadcast following the surrender. In his words:, “As I look back on the long, tortuous trail from those grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire world lived in fear; when Democracy was on the defensive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that he has given us the faith, the courage and the power from which to mold victory. We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in Peace what we won in War.” Let this day serve as a reminder of the human cost of war. Let it be a remembrance of those who were lost, and those who sacrificed everything for ideals of freedom, and liberty, and most of all, peace.
