I would direct you to Japan at War: An Oral History for accounts, though I don't want to give you wrong answers for the first question as I'm not sure.

I've only, admittedly, read two sections for class, but there is one in particular that actually kinda relates to your question. "The 'Green Desert' of New Guinea" by Ogawa Masatsugu. Just... a little off the region in question, but his account is powerful nevertheless.

We didn't know anything about the war situation outside our bit of jungle. One day at the enemy camp we saw two flags go up, the Union Jack and the Japanese flag. We heard "Banzai! Banzai!" in Japanese. We'd never seen anything like this before. We then had three days of silence. Planes flew over and dropped leaflets proclaiming, "Peace has come to the Orient." Even the regimental commander didn't know about the end of the war. This must have been about August 15, but even that I don't know exactly. It would be a lie if I said I felt sad, or happy. I can't analyze by feelings at that time. I just felt, "Well, so it's over."

And later on...

When we were imprisoned as POWs on Mushu Island, after the war had officially ended, a dozen or so men died everyday. The island was all coral, so we couldn't dig graves for them. We didn't have the strength, anyway. They had to hasten our repatriation because they couldn't keep us there any longer. We were shells of men, completely burned out. Even on the way to Japan, the transport had to stop several times to commit the latest dead to the sea. They were only one step away from home.