On November 26, 1941, Adm. Chuichi Nagumo lead the
Japanese First Air Fleet, an aircraft carrier strike force,
toward Pearl Harbor, with the understanding that should
“negotiations with the United States reach a successful
conclusion, the task force will immediately put about
and return to the homeland.”

Negotiations had been ongoing for months. Japan
wanted an end to U.S. economic sanctions.       

       
The Americans wanted Japan out of China and
Southeast Asia-and to repudiate the Tripartite “Axis”
Pact with Germany and Italy as conditions to be met
before those sanctions could be lifted.

Neither side was budging. President Roosevelt and
Secretary of State Cordell Hull were anticipating a
Japanese strike as  retaliation—they just didn’t
know where.     

 
Adm. Chūichi Nagumo (1887 – 1944)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt^[
(January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945)

Cordell Hull
(October 2, 1871 – July 23, 1955)

Launching from the Japanese sub I-25 (like below) Nobuo
Fujita piloted his light aircraft over the state of Oregon near
Brookings and firebombed Mount Emily, starting a forest fire.           

President Franklin D. Roosevelt immediately called for a news
blackout for the sake of morale. No long-term damage was 
done, and Fujita eventually went home to train navy pilots for
the rest of the war.

It was the first-ever aerial bombing on the US mainland.

       

Nobuo Fujita standing by his Yokosuka E14Y "Glen"
seaplane.

In what later became known as Victory Day, an official
announcement of Japan’s unconditional surrender to
the Allies was made public to the world on August 14,
1945. (Because of time-zone differences, it was August
15 in Japan.)

Japan formally surrendered in writing two weeks later,
on September 2, 1945.

American servicemen and women in Paris celebrate V-J Day.

   
CAMILLE BOHANNON

On August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb is dropped on
Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally
in Japan’s unconditional surrender.

On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union officially declared war on
Japan, pouring more than 1 million Soviet soldiers the following
day into Japanese-occupied Manchuria, northeastern China, to
take on the 700,000-strong Japanese army.