The National Museum of the Pacific War will host a special online event commemorating the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Pacific, also known as V-J Day. The program will be broadcast on YouTube followed by a livestream salute from the museum’s Memorial Courtyard on Facebook.

Although the Allies announced victory over the Japanese on August 15, the United States recognized V-J Day on September 2, when the Japanese signed their formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

The broadcast includes a variety of eyewitness perspectives of the end of World War II through interviews. These include a World War II veteran with vivid recollections of the end of the war, a native Texan who was a young girl during the war and her reflections on how her hometown changed over those four years and a Japanese-American couple - she was interned as a child and her husband, a Hawaiian native, was at Pearl Harbor during the attack in 1941.

The commemoration will kick off with a welcome by General Hagee, president and CEO of the Admiral Nimitz Foundation. Next, archival experts at the NMPW will share oral history excerpts and significant items from the museum’s collection; exhibits director, Reagan Grau, will present a model of the USS Missouri, the site of Imperial Japan’s surrender.

Immediately after the scheduled Youtube video, the museum will livestream a program from the museum’s Memorial Courtyard on Facebook. This will feature a presentation of memorial wreath by the Veterans Council of Gillespie County, Fredericksburg High School Navy JROTC presentation of the Colors, Military Order of the World Wars Hill Country Chapter and more.