AS the people of many nations awoke to peace for the first time in six years, a new era was also dawning as the world was forced to face up to the atomic age and the awful power that atomic weapons could yield. The fate of Japan had been sealed on August 6, 1945, nine days before VJ Day itself, when the city of Hiroshima was targeted by the Allies. Three days later, American forces headquarters on the Pacific island of Guam issued a brief statement. It read: "The second use of the atomic bomb occurred at noon at Nagasaki. The crew members reported good results." The dreadful reality of what had happened in those two cities was still to fully emerge as the world celebrated the end of Japan's evil dream of power and domination.

Arguments over the rights and wrongs of dropping the Bomb would be agonised over in the decades that followed but, in those days half-a-century ago, there was one group of people who were convinced it was not only the right action but the Hiroshima and Nagasaki raids had saved their lives. Across the Far East allied prisoners of war, many used as slave labour, had suffered for years at the hands of brutal and sadistic guards and they were convinced that, should their captors be ordered back to defend Japan itself, there would have been wholesale executions in the camps. But the sudden and pre-emptive strikes wiped away those real fears as the mushroom clouds hung over Japan.

At first, following the Hiroshima bomb, the Japanese talked with initial understatement. A communiqué from the official news agency spoke of "considerable damage". By the next day, things were very different. The Allies, eavesdropping on Japanese radio broadcasts, heard reports, that the bomb had "literally seared to death" all living things. "Those outdoors were burned to death and those indoors killed by the indescribable pressure and heat," said the radio. "The dead were scorched beyond recognition. "Hiroshima is a city in ruins and the dead are too numerous to be counted."

Aerial photographs taken as soon as the seven-and-a-half-mile-high mountain of smoke and dust had cleared showed that the heart of the city had been wiped out "with such awful thoroughness as if some giant bulldozer had swept across the buildings and houses." Similar descriptions followed the Nagasaki detonation when a fiery orange ball was seen 250 miles away. The following day, the Japanese said they would consider surrender and, on August 14, radio listeners in Japan were prepared for a "very important announcement". Two hours after Emperor Hirohito personally announced the surrender of Japan, the country's war minister committed hara-kiri "to atone for his failure".