10 Photos From V-J Day Celebrations Around the World

Standing outside the Place de l’Opéra, American servicemen in Paris read news of the Japanese surrender in the French newspaper Libé-Soir, a publication founded in 1940 by the Liberation movement in occupied France. U.S. soldiers had been stationed in the country since the summer of 1944.

The joy many Americans felt spread in towns small and large across the country, and it wasn’t just adults who understood the importance of the news. Here, children and adults in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, hold copies of The Knoxville Journal, declaring “War Ends.” Oak Ridge was established in 1942 by the Army Corps of Engineers and served as headquarters of the Manhattan Project, which developed the world’s first atomic weapons.

Tens of thousands of New Yorkers crowded Times Square to celebrate on August 14, 1945, after Truman made a special announcement about Japan’s surrender to the press and American public at 7 p.m. Three minutes later, the “Zipper,” a news ticker on the Times Tower that delivered headlines via incandescent lightbulbs, relayed Truman’s message: “Official—Truman Announces Japanese Surrender.” By the end of the night, it’s estimated a crowd of 2 million people were cheering in the streets.

Perhaps the most memorable image of V-J Day is that of a sailor kissing a dental hygienist, taken by LIFE magazine photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt. However, Eisenstaedt wasn’t the only photographer to record the infamous V-J Day Kiss, often called simply “The Kiss.” This image of Greta Zimmer Friedman, who had come from work and later said the kiss was nonconsensual, and a sailor believed to be George Mendonsa was taken by U.S. Navy photographer Victor Jorgensen. The alternate angle appeared in The New York Times on August 15, 1945.

In San Francisco, people took to streetcars and the streets to cheer on the end of the war. However, celebrations in San Francisco quickly took a dark turn that lasted more than three days. Drunken sailors and other revelers flooded downtown Market Street then smashed store windows and streetcars. In what historians consider to be one of the worst riots in San Francisco history, over 1,000 people were injured, around 11 people were killed and at least six women were raped.

Celebrations continued as the world awaited official surrender from the Japanese government. On August 18, 1945, a crowd in New Jersey hoists a white sailor and a Black soldier, who pose in a hug. More than 16 million Americans served in the war, and as early as 1944, there were some integrated combat units.

A Japanese prisoner of war smiles from his cell at the Bilibid Prison in the Philippines, as he holds the front page of the August 15 edition of the Daily Pacifican declaring “War Over.” Throughout the course of the war, Japanese forces imprisoned nearly 30,000 Americans.

On August 15, 1945, King George VI waves from the balcony of Buckingham Palace alongside Queen Elizabeth and Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. George also delivered a V-J Day address to the British Commonwealth.

“The war is over. You know, I think, that those four words have for the Queen and myself the same significance, simple yet immense, that they have for you,” he said. “Our hearts are full to overflowing, as are your own. Yet there is not one of us who has experienced this terrible war who does not realise that we shall feel its inevitable consequences long after we have all forgotten our rejoicings of today.”

Japan’s surprise aerial attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, prompted the United States to enter World War II. Nearly four years later, fireworks were lit in Oahu, Hawaii, on August 14, 1945, in the same place that sparked U.S. troops to enter the conflict.

A formal surrender ceremony took place aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. This photo shows Japanese Imperial Headquarters representative General Yoshijirō Umezu signing the Instrument of Surrender while U.S. General Douglas MacArthur (foreground center), the commander of the Southwest Pacific Theater and Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, looks on.