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

Two Japanese Mitsubishi Ki-57 'Topsy' transport aircraft taxiing at Mingaladon airfield. Japanese emissaries, led by Lieutenant-General Takazo Numata (Chief of Staff, Southern Army) and Rear Admiral Kaigye Chudo (Deputy Chief of Staff), walk through a crowd of Allied servicemen with parked Spitfires in the background. Japanese aircrew waiting at the reception tents.

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.