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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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The Japanese Surrender and the Forgotten Fleet

by CSV Actiondesk at 大象传媒 Oxford

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Contributed by听
CSV Actiondesk at 大象传媒 Oxford
People in story:听
Tony Jenner
Location of story:听
The Pacific: 1945
Background to story:听
Royal Navy
Article ID:听
A5320081
Contributed on:听
25 August 2005

鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Adult and Community Learning, Woodstock, on behalf of Tony and has been added to the site with his permission. Tony fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.鈥

By 1945 I was 20 years old, and sailing with the British Pacific Fleet on the Battleship HMS King George V. This was the Flag Ship of Admiral Rawlings, 2nd in Command of the British Pacific Fleet.

We had been in the Pacific since February and were 300 miles off the coast of Japan when they dropped the 2 atomic bombs. We never knew anything about them till we saw the pictures later. We had been at sea for 53 days from 9th June to 1st October (a longer time than usual).

We steamed around for 2 weeks off the Japanese coast before we went in to officially accept Japan鈥檚 surrender. First the USS Missouri entered Tokyo Bay, followed by the Duke of York, then our ship the
King George V. We dropped anchor, and (because it had not been used for so long), it created a huge cloud of dust so that you could not see the ship for a while.

After the surrender was signed there was big flypast from all the ships. Landing parties went ashore to find the Prisoners of War who had been abandoned by the Japanese 鈥 the guards had disappeared. The POWs did not know what was happening.

The British raised the flag over the British Embassy. When they left they took it down and everyone from the landing party signed it. A shipmate kept it safe for many years and recently presented it to the Imperial War Museum, London.

We became known as the 鈥淔orgotten Fleet鈥. There were 300 ships and Merchant Navy ships providing things like food and mail. They all went their own way after the surrender and all came home at different times. We went first to Australia and eventually arrived home in England in March 1946.

It was 100 degrees when we left Australia. I came home to a snow storm. I gave the bus conductor a cigarette. He asked, 鈥淲here have you come from?鈥 I said, 鈥淎ustralia鈥. He replied, 鈥淲here鈥檚 that.鈥 I thought this said it all really.

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