Eighty years after Victory in the Pacific Day, Ron – now 101 – remembers a slightly lonely celebration

Second world war veteran Ron Gee Kee was in Darwin for Victory in the Pacific Day. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Ben Chifley called it a “glorious moment”. On 15 August 1945 half a million people poured on to the streets of Sydney to celebrate the end of six years of war.

News spread quickly after Emperor Hirohito announced that Japan had accepted the allies’ demand for unconditional surrender.