Today is V-J [Victory over Japan] or V-P [Victory in the Pacific] day.

62 years ago, At 12pm Japan Standard Time in 1945, Emperor Hirohito’s announced Japan’s acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and it was broadcast to the Japanese people over the radio. This is the first time the Japanese people heard the voice of their God-Emperor.

Japan was the last Axis power to surrender and with its surrender, World War II – a savage, vicious and devastating war, officially comes to an end. It signals the end of Colonialism, the defeat of Militarism and the triumph of the free world against Fascism.

A new era is ushered in Asia and within the next 20 years, countries in South East Asia all come to gain their independence from their former colonial powers, either through open rebellion or by peaceful negotiations.

Below is a list of South and South-East Asian countries which gain independence since the end of World War II

The list does not include Bengladesh and Pakistan as they were split from India as a result of a war.

1945 – World War II: Hiroshima is devastated when an atomic bomb, ‘Little Boy’, is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 90,000 people were killed instantly.

The above has never meant very much to me. For a better part of my life, I had felt that the atomic bomb was justified. I had believed that it was a necessary evil to end the war, and to bring Imperial Japan to its knees without further loss of lives for the Allies and Japanese alike.

I lost an uncle I never had the chance to meet during the war. He was one of the Chinese volunteers at Kranji. My father was 3 when the Japanese invaded Singapore. My grandfather died from a bomb shrapnel that destroyed the home left behind by my great-grandfather. Another uncle – just a babe – died when my grandmother dropped him off the lorry taking them away to safety. Nanking, and the ‘Sook Ching’ in Singapore has made me felt at least the use of first bomb was justified.

I am not so sure anymore after I watched a the documentary ‘Hiroshima’ on Discovery Channel. I felt sorry for the people of Hiroshima.

There was the account of a mother, recalling how she has been unable to extricate her own child from the debris, and had to listen to her child’s wails and shrieks of agony as she is burnt to death. And then how her husband died from radiation sickness there after.

A bank employee recalled how she emerge from the ruins to see people who are burnt badly, with skin hanging from their bodies wandering mindlessly around. A tram operator recalling how people seem to be unaware that the direction they are moving towards will give them no solace, not to mention they seem oblivious to those heading towards them in the opposite direction. A doctor recalling how he came across a victim, so badly burnt but yet has ran several miles before he practically dropped dead before his eyes.

It was a vision of hell on Earth.

I am not justifying the war or making Japan look like the victim. Imperial Japan certain has blood on its hands with all the crimes committed in the occupied terroritories. But I doubt these people deserved any of this.

It is my sincere wish such an evil weapon will never be used again and that these ‘Cocoons of the Devil’ should all be destroyed so it can harm no one anymore.