Japanese emissaries arrive at Mingaladon airfield, near Rangoon, Burma, to begin preliminary surrender negotiations.

Air Vice Marshal Bouchier (commander RAF 221 Group) and Lieutenant-General Sir Montague Stopford (commander 12th Army) awaiting the arrival of Japanese emissaries at Mingaladon. Two Japanese Mitsubishi Ki-57 'Topsy' transport aircraft pass overhead escorted by Spitfires of RAF 273 Squadron. Emissaries walking to their vehicles. Emissaries entering Government House. News correspondents at work on typewriters. A number of waiting vehicles. A column of vehicles leaving the airfield. Japanese airmen waiting outside a tent.

Notes

Historical context: Japan lost the last of her armies in Burma in July 1945. Increasingly intense conventional bombing of the Japanese Home Islands by the United States caused massive loss of life and wrecked war industries before culminating in atomic attacks on 6 August 1945 and 9 August 1945. In the same period the Soviet Union declared war and invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The Japanese government surrendered unconditionally on 15 August 1945.

Formal Japanese surrender in south east Asia would not occur until 12 September 1945 in Singapore. The agreement signed in Rangoon was a preliminary step ordering local Japanese commanders to obey the instructions of British occupation forces. This facilitated the recovery of Allied prisoners of war and internees, a process known as RAPWI.

This occasion covered by multiple British Army and RAF cameramen and still photographers. See related items.