Two nuclear bombs had just obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and New Zealand forces were among those who witnessed the Japanese casualties of war.
Kiwi soldiers who had already seen action in Italy went to Japan as J Force alongside other Allied troops, occupying Japan and doing various forms of infrastructure and security work.
Jim Woods does not tell many stories of that time, and still finds it difficult to describe what he saw, walking through the streets kicking up atomic dust.
``I'd seen a lot of bombing in Europe, but nothing like that. The Japanese were beaten and bowed. It was awful.''
He spent several months with J Force, his work including dealing with Japanese citizens who had been living in China but returned to Japan to settle after WW2 ended.
It was a final wartime chapter for Mr Woods that was also a little-known one throughout the country. Many New Zealanders knew nothing of J Force and what they did.
More than 70 years later, Mr Woods is like many returned servicemen and speaks selectively about his wartime experiences.
His J Force service was prefaced by a year serving in Italy, including six months on the front line.
Originally from Dunedin, he had joined the territorials aged 18, then did two years in the artillery and then went to the infantry at Burnham Military Camp.
He was 21 by the time he went to Italy as part of the D Company of the 23rd Battalion.
The cold of the winter there is one of his clearest memories: the snow, the fog, the deep mud, the lack of blankets, the frozen potatoes and frozen cabbage and thawed meat they ate.
``We carried our world on our back,'' but no-one complained, he said. ``That's just what we had.''
Sometimes the soldiers would share their meagre food rations with Italian families they met, and the Italians in turn would share their wine. The soldiers tried to claim some civility during their leave time. But Mr Woods keeps details of fighting close to his chest, talking of battles as only ``a bit of a rough spin'', or ``a rough introduction''.
When he got home, he ``went to Cromwell, met a girl and got married''. He led a peaceful and happy life.
He knows of no-one else with whom he served who is still alive.
This Anzac Day, he will attend the Cromwell Anzac service. He has also often attended the Bannockburn service and been part of the Cromwell RSA group that lays poppies on the graves of returned servicemen at the Cromwell cemetery on Anzac Day.
He continues to be exasperated by the futility of war.
Cromwell returned serviceman Tom Landreth grew up in the Catlins and ``thought I knew a bit about the bush'', but the Pacific wartime jungle was ``just a little bit more than that''.
As part of the 14th brigade in the third division of the 37th Battalion, he spent about two years in the Pacific, first as a stretcher-bearer and later in the intelligence section.
Having first spent time in the territorials and the infantry, Mr Landreth went to war aged 21, in 1942, as part of the New Zealand forces deployed to support American troops and secure Pacific islands after they had been cleared. He moved around posts in Fiji, New Caledonia, Guadalcanal, Vella Lavella, Green Island and Nissan Island.
It was hot work, with ever-present rain and mosquitoes. Practice night river crossings were spent dodging saltwater crocodiles. But conditions were ``not too bad'', Mr Landreth said.
The troops were ``reasonably'' well supplied with medicine and food, often from the American base. ``Jungle rations'' typically featured corned beef, cheese, biscuits and coffee, a tobacco ration, and a rum ration ``if things were pretty arduous''.
Mr Landreth's division was disbanded in 1944 and he returned to New Zealand, where he was drafted to industry as a mill chemist in Milton.
He never had ``any illusions about war'', growing up with a father who had lost an arm in battle in Passchendaele in World War 1. One of Mr Landreth's uncles had been killed in that war and Mr Landreth's father never spoke of his wartime experiences.
Mr Landreth now shakes his head as he watches evidence of continuing wars worldwide. Immediately after a war, as happened after WW1 and WW2, lessons appeared to have been learnt, and society promised itself there would never be another war, he said.
But people kept repeating the same mistakes, Mr Landreth said.
This Anzac Day, he will attend the services in Cromwell and Bannockburn, and lay poppies on the Cromwell graves of returned servicemen and women.
