Wings of Duty

Wings of Duty — Page 16

Syed Muhammad Ahmad 16 The war soon took a turn for the better. There were victories on almost all fronts and also a marked improvement in our living conditions. But we still thought the fighting would not end by late 1945 or early 1946 because the Japanese continued to hold out resolutely. However, unbeknownst to us, Allied forces were planning a large-scale operation to defeat Japan as soon as possible. As a result, a number of fresh fighter squadrons began arriving at Mingaladon. Despite the military engineers working day and night to build a new and longer runway, space was still tight at the air base. On 6 and 9 August 1945 the United States of America dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroying both of them. The Japanese government collapsed and Japan surrendered. A few days after hostilities ended, the most high-ranking Japanese commander of the region came from Singapore to the Mingaladon Air Base on a Japanese transport plane. We saw him and his delegation surrender arms to his Allied counterpart, General Slim, later field marshal and governor general of Australia. Later, the supreme commander of the Allied forces in South Asia, Admiral Mountbatten,