
1945
Historical Timeline: 1945
Landing at Iwo Jima. Courtesy of the United States Department of Defense.
January 1945
Twenty-five Military Intelligence Service Nisei specially trained in low-level radio intercept join the 6th Radio Squadron Mobile in Assam, India.
February 19, 1945
Several MIS Nisei soldiers land with the US Marines on Iwo Jima, one of the last battles in the Pacific. A total of about 50 MIS Nisei join the fighting there. Nisei are also present in the Tinian Island operation.
Members of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion working in the fire direction center. Courtesy of the United States Army Signal Corps.
Members of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion. Courtesy of the United States Army Signal Corps.
Warren Higa questions a Japanese prisoner on Okinawa. Courtesy of the United States Army Signal Corps.
An aerial view of part of the Nazi’s Gothic Line. Courtesy of the United States Army.
April 5-6, 1945
100th/442nd RCT makes a surprise attack on Nazi mountainside positions in Italy, breaking through the Nazi Gothic Line in one day.
April 6, 1945
100th/442nd RCT begins to drive the enemy up the Italian coast to Genoa and Turin.
Liberated Dachau prisoners cheer American troops. Courtesy of the US Government.
Germany surrenders. May 8, 1945. Courtesy of the German Federal Archive.
May 2, 1945
German Army surrenders in Italy.
May 8, 1945
The war in Europe is over.
The MARS Task Force makes its way through the hills toward the Burma Road. January 1945. Courtesy of the United States Department of Defense.
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Courtesy of the United States Department of Defense.
August 6, 1945
The Americans drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
The MARS Task Force makes its way through the hills toward the Burma Road. January 1945. Courtesy of the United States Department of Defense.
Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender on board the USS Missouri. Lieutenant General Richard K. Sutherland, US Army, watches. September 2, 1945. Courtesy of the United States Army Signal Corps.
August 1945
MISers begin their participation in the surrender and seven-year occupation of Japan. More than 5,000 MIS Nisei are involved in processing war crimes, repatriation of Japanese soldiers and civilians, civil censorship, land reform, government reorganization and the rewriting of Japan’s constitution
September 2, 1945
Japan formally surrenders to the US and the Allies. World War II ends.
Throughout the Pacific region, Japanese troops surrender to Allied forces through the month of September.
September 4, 1945
The Western Defense Command proclaims that all military restrictions and exclusion orders against those of Japanese descent are rescinded.2
September 8, 1945
Nisei language teams accompany American units landing at Inchon for occupation duty in southern Korea.3
The 1st Cavalry Division, accompanied by MIS Nisei, becomes the first American unit to enter Tokyo after the surrender.
October 8, 1945
The trial of General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the first major war crime trial of the Pacific war, begins in Manila. Nisei are assigned as interpreters under the Navy and also on the defense and prosecution teams.
October 22, 1945

Footnotes
- 1James C. McNaughton, Nisei Linguists: Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service during World War II (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 2006), p. 317.
- 2“The War Relocation Authority and the Incarceration of Japanese-Americans during WWII,” Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, accessed on February 3, 2015.
- 3McNaughton, p. 411.