For this VJ Day, I am going to keep it really simple. What follows are decoded messages and congratulations sent to Force 136 / SOE immediatly before and after the 15 August 1945, as well as how to deal with the newly surrendered Japanese troops. I have not seen these docs in any archive; they are from a private collection which I was kindly given access to.

Document 1: from the 11 & 12 August, decoded by Sgt Dallow MM of Operation Character, team Mongoose. Dallow was with Jed Team Francis in France before volunteering to go out East. This document gives us a good insight into what was going on in the days leading up to VJ Day, and how much was disclosed to troops:

Document 2: From ‘ASH’. ‘ASH’ was the codename for the Army’s W/T signals to Force 136. Many of the Force 136 operations had animal codenames, so the seemingly random ‘DOG’ and ‘ZEBRA’are references to two teams on Operation Billet/Nation. The handwritten bit tells us that Sgt Dallow used a One Time Pad (OTP) to take down and decode the message:

Document 3: As taken down by the Force 136 W/T operator. Amazing this survived. It tells us that the Force 136 teams got the order to cease offensive operations at 1930hrs on the 15 August:

Document 4: Congratulations from SOE HQ in London:

Document 5: Congratulations from Twelth Army, General Montague Stopford, which I am sure they would have been pleased to receive:

Document 6: some really interesting details of how to deal with the surrendered Japanese:

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