​​​‘80th Anniversary of Victory in the Pacific Ten Crown Coin’
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Once Germany surrendered, Allied leaders were able to focus on the Pacific theatre of war. Outlined in the terms in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, Japan were ordered to surrender or face ‘prompt and utter destruction.’ When Japan did not lay down their arms by 6 August 1945, an American warplane dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.
Three days later a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. More than 100,000 people, mainly civilians, died instantly when the bombs detonated and tens of thousands more perished over the following months from injuries, burns and radiation sickness. Faced with the threat of more, the Japanese surrendered on 15 August 1945 on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. The Second World War was officially ended. As crowds back in Australia celebrated and peace descended across the Pacific, the dreadful cost of the war was sorrowfully calculated. . In all 27,073 members of the Australian military were either killed, died of their wounds or while prisoners of war, with tales of unbelievable maltreatment of POWs coming back from those who survived the fall of Singapore, Kokoda, The Burma Railway and the defence of New Britain. Most of the Australian POWs who died in Japanese captivity were the victim of deliberate malnutrition and disease, while hundreds more were killed by their guards on a whim.
The Burma–Thai Railway was the most notorious of the prisoner of war experiences, as 13,000 Australians worked on it at various times during 1942 and 1943, with almost 2,650 Australians dying there. Thousands of Australian POWs were also sent to the Japanese home islands where they worked in factories and mines in the harshest of conditions. The POWs held in camps at Ambon and Borneo suffered the highest death rates – 77% of those at Ambon died and few of the 2,500 Australian prisoners in Borneo survived - almost all killed by overwork and a series of death marches in 1945.
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To commemorate the hard-fought victory in the Pacific and pay tribute to the sacrifices made, the Bradford Mint has created this exclusive, impressively sized 65mm, .999 Silver, 5oz, Ten Crown Coin. Struck to the highest Proof quality available and limited to a mintage of just 1,945 worldwide - in line with the year WWII ended - it features finely etched allegorical images of NIKE, the Goddess of Victory, and the triumphant Lion of the Allies atop a fallen, two-headed dragon symbolising the defeated Germany and Japan. The obverse carries a portrait of His Majesty King Charles III.
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• Celebrate Victory in the Pacific with this 65mm, .999 Silver, 5oz, Ten Crown Coin
• Minted in the United Kingdom
• Approved by Buckingham Palace
• Strictly limited mintage of just 1,945 worldwide
Call one of our Senior Coin Experts now on 02 9841 3324 to secure this celebration of the free-world’s hardest fought victory.
