USA / Japan: The First Iwo Jima Flag Raising. Stars and Stripes carried ashore by the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines is planted atop Mount Suribachi at 10.20 am, 23 February 1945. Louis Lowery, US Marine Corps

On December 7–8, 1941, Japanese forces carried out surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, attacks on British forces in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong and declared war, bringing the US and the UK into World War II in the Pacific.

After the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender on August 15. The war cost Japan and the rest of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere millions of lives and left much of the nation's industry and infrastructure destroyed.

Copyright:

Supplier: CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

Louis R. Lowery

Credit:

Pictures From History