| Original caption: “Discharged Japanese soldiers crowd trains as they take advantage of free transportation to their homes after the end of World War II in Hiroshima, Japan.” Discharged Japanese soldiers take advantage of free transport home from Hiroshima, a major port for the repatriation of demobilized forces. Millions of Japanese took Allied and Imperial Japanese Navy ships home, and trains back to their hometowns. The war had been won in the Pacific. In Asia, Japan’s army was largely intact. It had large numbers of troops in northern and western China and, until August 9, 1945, Manchuria and Korea as well. Japanese armies had been badly mauled in Burma, but all of Indochina, Malaya, and the Netherlands Indies were still under Japanese control. At the moment of surrender, there were approximately 6 1/2 1,000,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians — about 1 in every 20 Japanese – in the western Pacific and on the mainland of Asia. They included approximately 1.2 1,000,000 in Manchuria, 750,000 in Korea, 1.5 1,000,000 in China proper, and at least 700,000 in various parts of Southeast Asia. Allied policy was that all these Japanese were to be returned to Japan. In principle, Allied forces would occupy the entire Japanese Imperial Empire, where they would receive formal surrenders from various commands and disarm and repatriate the Japanese. The basic surrender document, General Order Number 1, hastily drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon during the night of August 10, provided that Japanese forces in China, Taiwan, and northern Indochina, but not Manchuria, were to surrender to Kuomingtang Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (October 31, 1887 – April 5, 1975). All Japanese forces in Manchuria and in Korea, north of the 38th Parallel, were to surrender to the commander in chief of Soviet forces in the Far East. Japanese forces in Southeast Asia and the southwest Pacific were instructed to surrender to the Supreme Allied Commander, United Kingdom Royal Navy Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten (June 25, 1900 – August 27, 1979), and those in other parts of the Pacific to United States Navy Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (February 24, 1885 – February 20, 1966), Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet. The Japanese government and all forces in the Home Islands were to surrender to United States Army General Douglas MacArthur (January 26, 1880 – April 5, 1964), designated the Supreme Allied Commander in Japan. Japanese forces in Korea, south of the 38th Parallel, and in the Philippines, would also surrender to MacArthur. President Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) approved the order on August 14, 1945, and it was dispatched to Japan for Emperor Hirohito (April 29, 1901 – January 7, 1989), to issue to his troops. At the suggestion of Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy (March 31, 1895 – March 11, 1989), a provision had been added instructing the Japanese that the Allied commanders listed in the order were “the only representatives empowered to accept the surrender and all surrenders of Japanese forces shall be made only to them or their designated representatives.” Yet it would be some time before the forces of the victorious powers could arrive in all the various quarters of the former Greater East Asia. In a few places, that interval was relatively short; in many others, it was a matter of some weeks or more. United States Navy Lieutenant Wayne F. Miller (September 19, 1918 – May 22, 2013) went ashore to document the occupation troops taking control of Japanese facilities. Defying orders, he and a civilian correspondent from Time magazine caught a train in an attempt to get to Hiroshima to document the atomic-bomb damage. In every town he passed on his way south, Miller saw soldiers waiting for trains and made many images of these Japanese warriors trying to make their way home. “I was not prepared for the horrors we saw in Hiroshima.” Miller recalled. “The devastation was the ultimate denial of sanity and not something I will ever forget.” Making his way back to Tokyo, Miller located and photographed many former American Prisoners of War before September 12, when Miller left Tokyo Harbor, bound for Saipan. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1477.jpg |
| Image Size | 844.21 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2334 x 2466 |
| Photographer | Wayne Miller |
| Photographer Title | United States Navy |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | September 12, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | Hiroshima |
| State or Province | Hiroshima |
| Country | Japan |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-80-G-473755 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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