British
Participation
in
the
Second
World War
883
The
collapse
of
Japan,
coming
so soon
after
that
of
Germany,
also
forestalled
plans
for a
large
redeployment
of
British
fighting
strength
to
assist
the
United
States in
the
reduction
of
Japan.
In
September
1944,
at
the
second
Quebec
conference,
Churchill offered
to
send,
as
soon as
Germany
was
defeated,
the main
British fleet to take
part
in
the
major
operations
against
Japan
under the
supreme
American com-
mand,
and
Roosevelt
at
once
accepted
the offer. There were also
plans
to throw the
Royal
Air
Force and British
land forces into the
Pacific
war;
but neither
of
these,
apart
from
the Australian and New Zealand
troops
that
were
already
there,
had a chance
to
participate
in
it. The
Royal Navy,
however,
was
represented
by
a formidable division
in
the
last
stages
of
that
war.
In March
1945
it
went into
action
as
part
of
Admiral
Spruance's
fleet,
and it
suffered
heavy
casualties
as
well as
severe
damages
from
"suicide" bombers before the swift
collapse
of
the
enemy
with the
blasting
of Hiroshima
by
an atomic bomb
on
6
August,
the
Russian
declaration of
war
on
the
8th,
the
destruction
of
Nagasaki by
a
bigger
atomic bomb on the
9th,
and
Japan's
acceptance
on the 10th
of
the
terms of surrender that
the Allies
had laid
down at
their
Potsdam conference
only
a
fortnight
previously.