F-YEAH HISTORY

Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender at the end of World War II, accompanied by Toshikazu Kase (right) The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was the written agreement that formalised the surrender of the Empire of Japan, marking the end of World War II. It was signed by representatives from the Empire of Japan, the United States of America, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Dominion of New Zealand. The signing took place on the deck of USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945.

The date is sometimes known as Victory over Japan Day, although that designation more frequently refers to the date of Emperor Hirohito's Gyokuon-hōsō (Imperial Rescript of Surrender), the radio broadcast announcement of the acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration at noon Japan Standard Time on August 15.

Rangoon, Burma. 8 August 1945. A young ethnic Chinese woman who was in one of the Imperial Japanese Army's "comfort stations" is interviewed by an Allied officer Comfort women were women and girls forced into a prostitution corps created by the Empire of Japan. The name "comfort women" is a translation of a Japanese name ianfu (慰安婦). Ianfu is a euphemism for shōfu (娼婦) whose meaning is "prostitute(s)".

Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with numbers ranging from as low as 20,000 from some Japanese scholars to as high as 410,000 from some Chinese scholars, but the exact numbers are still being researched and debated. A majority of the women were from Korea, China, Japan and the Philippines, although women from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and other Japanese-occupied territories were used for military "comfort stations". Stations were located in Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, then Malaya, Thailand, Burma, New Guinea, Hong Kong, Macau, and French Indochina.

According to testimony, young women from countries under Japanese Imperial control were abducted from their homes. In many cases, women were also lured with promises of work in factories or restaurants. Once recruited, the women were incarcerated in "comfort stations" in foreign lands. A Dutch government study described how the Japanese military itself recruited women by force in the Dutch East Indies. It revealed that a total of 300 Dutch women had been coerced into Japanese military sex slavery.

Victorious Japanese troops marching through Singapore City after British capitulation at the Battle of Singapore, 1942 The Battle of Singapore, also known as the Fall of Singapore, was fought in the South-East Asian theatre of the Second World War when the Empire of Japan invaded the Allied stronghold of Singapore. Singapore was the major British military base in South-East Asia and nicknamed the "Gibraltar of the East". The fighting in Singapore lasted from 8–15 February 1942.

A Chinese machine gun nest in the Battle of Shanghai, 1937 The Battle of Shanghai, known in Chinese as Battle of Songhu, was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and the Imperial Japanese Army of the Empire of Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the entire war.

Japanese marines at Guangdong in the Battle of Wuhan in 1938 during the Second Sino-Japanese War The Battle of Wuhan, popularly known to the Chinese as the Defence of Wuhan, and to the Japanese as the Capture of Wuhan, was a large-scale battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War. More than one million National Revolutionary Army troops were gathered, with Chiang Kai-shek himself in command, to defend Wuhan from the Imperial Japanese Army led by Yasuji Okamura.