YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Japanese and American flags flew at half-staff at the home of U.S. Forces Japan on Thursday to mark the 79th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific.

On Aug. 15, 1945, Japanese Emperor Hirohito spoke for the first time to the Japanese public by broadcasting on Radio Tokyo that their nation’s military had finally yielded to the Allies. He avoided using the word surrender.

The day is remembered by former allied nations as V-J Day, or Victory in Japan. In the U.S. the date was Aug. 14.

The government of Japan ordered the nation’s flags flown at half-staff to mark the day. Yokota ordered its U.S. flags lowered, too, in solidarity.

The war formally ended Sept. 2, 1945, with the signing of surrender documents aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay at a ceremony presided over by Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

The war in the Pacific lasted three years, eight months, three weeks and five days. The wider war in the Asian theater claimed the lives of about 36 million people.

The U.S. and Japan, once fierce foes, became fast allies, tied by a mutual defense pact, and brought even closer recently by a common perceived threat from the growing military might of communist China.