Victory and the Atomic Bomb End World War II
Germany surrenders, two atomic bombs fall on Japan, and the war is over
Quick facts
- V-E Day
- May 8, 1945 (German surrender)
- Atomic bombs
- Hiroshima August 6, Nagasaki August 9, 1945
- Japan's formal surrender
- September 2, 1945, aboard USS Missouri
- Contested question
- The justification for using the atomic bomb
What happened
By the spring of 1945 the Allies had ground down Nazi Germany from east and west, and Germany surrendered on May 7-8, 1945, marked as Victory in Europe Day. The war against Japan continued in the Pacific. In August the United States used a new weapon: American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945, were the first uses of atomic bombs against humans, killing tens of thousands of people, obliterating the cities, and contributing to the end of the war. Japan announced its surrender days later, and the formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, ended World War II. The decision to use the bomb remains among the most argued-over choices in American history.
Why it matters
The end of World War II left the United States the strongest power on earth, its homeland untouched and its economy dominant, and the atomic bombings opened the nuclear age that would define the Cold War and the constant threat of world-ending war. The moral and strategic debate over dropping the bomb, whether it saved lives by avoiding an invasion or was an atrocity against civilians, has never been settled.
How we know
The German and Japanese surrenders are documented in the signed instruments of surrender and Allied military records, and the atomic bombings are documented by the National Archives, the National Park Service, and the physical and human record at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Sources
- National Archives. The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki · Primary source (author-declared)archives.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- The National WWII Museum. V-J Day: The Surrender of Japan · Reputable sourcenationalww2museum.org · The domain "nationalww2museum.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Related timelines
- World War II → · See the World War II timeline for the full course of the war in Europe and the Pacific that these events brought to an end.