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It's worth saying that the Pacific Fleet off Japan wasn't the only @RoyalNavy fleet in the Far East on #VJDay. At Trincomalee lay the East Indies Fleet, under Adm Sir Arthur Power, just back from operating off Thailand, & preparing for the amphibious landings to recapture Malaya. 
Though reduced from its peak the previous year by the transfer of the big, Illustrious & Implacable Class fleet carriers to the Pacific with Adm Fraser, the damage to HMS Valiant & the return home of HMS Queen Elizabeth & HMS Renown, Adm Power's fleet still packed a punch.
Replacing HMS Queen Elizabeth as flagship was HMS Nelson, fresh from refitting in the US, while the @MarineNationale battleship Richelieu would return just three days later, fresh from a refit at Durban in South Africa.
1/ My late father, Brian Rowntree’s (centre) letter home, from his ship #hmsindefatigable , about #VJDay
( #VJDay75 thread):
“Well, we have got a third and last surrender, after all that suspense. Censorship has been lifted this morning, so I can spread myself in this”
( #VJDay75 thread):
“Well, we have got a third and last surrender, after all that suspense. Censorship has been lifted this morning, so I can spread myself in this”
2/ “Rumours were driving us mental... on the morning the Japs threw in the towel, we were as usual at action stations & we had a strike out over Tokyo Bay. They came back, having knocked down six, and we cancelled our further planned strikes...
3/ “and the Commander broadcast & pointed out that the flagship was flying the signal ‘cease activities against Japan’. We all leaned over the rail and were goofing at the string of the bunting, when...
#OTD in 1945, #Tokyo sued for peace and free nations celebrated: #WorldWar2 was over. Emperor Hirohito told his people they should “endure the unendurable and suffer the insufferable” after 8 years of war. #VJDay #WWII #threadtweet
#VJDay - Victory over Japan on Aug 15 1945- came as the #RoyalNavy prepared for the final invasion of the home islands alongside the Americans: Operation Downfall. Allied casualties were predicted to be at least 200,000 killed and wounded. #WWII #treadtweet
The British Pacific Fleet was the mightiest force ever mustered by the #RoyalNavy outside home water: 5 battleships, 33 fleet, light and escort carriers, 23 cruisers, nearly 80 destroyers, 43 submarines and scores of minesweepers, sloops, auxiliaries & escorts. #VJDay #treadtweet
Was the famous #AlfredEisenstaedt photo of the sailor kissing a woman who appeared to be a nurse, in #TimesSquare, on #VJDay, a #sexualassault? Contrary to accepted wisdom of the #MeToo crowd (whose goals I support, but whose excesses I deplore), probably not. Here's why: /1
First, it’s not clear who is in the photo. Is it #GretaZimmer or #EdithShain? #GeorgeMendonsa or #CarlMuscarello? Or one of the many other men who claimed to be kisser or women who claimed to be the kissee? It matters, because, absent a victim, there is no sexual assault. /2
Absent testimony, the law does not assume a man touching a woman on a photo is touching her sexually without her consent simply based on body language. It is one thing to #BelieveWomen women's stories, but quite another to PRESUME no consent. Luckily, that is not the law. /3
