In Britain our cultural memory of the end of the war seems to me to entirely focus on VE Day, with celebrations and commemorations, some the subject of later myth-making, which have been discussed fantastically on this sub before. I am wondering what the mood of the country might have been after VE Day but before the war was fully over. Was the Pacific War an afterthought? Did people even really pay attention to the fact it was still going on? And were there any similar celebrations on VJ Day?
The main preoccupation in the period between VE and VJ Day in the UK was a General Election. As the war entered its final stages the Conservative and Labour parties, in coalition then, began to jockey for position in post-war Britain. Following the surrender of Germany Churchill wrote, in a public letter, to the leaders of the Labour and Liberal parties offering the options of preserving the coalition until the end of the war with Japan (expected to be anything up to 18 months away at that point) or immediately dissolving the coalition and holding an election. Labour leader Clement Attlee feared the euphoria of victory over Germany would carry Churchill to an easy victory in a snap election, but the party's National Executive Committee overwhelmingly rejecting continued coalition. Churchill therefore resigned on May 23rd, reappointed to a caretaker government that would be dissolved on June 15th, with votes to be cast on July 5th. The result of the election was an unexpected landslide win for Labour, Clement Attlee becoming Prime Minister in the middle of the Potsdam Conference. (See Paul Addison's The Road to 1945 for the complete picture.)
Though British and Commonwealth forces were heavily involved in the war with Japan it was, largely, thought of as an American war with little direct impact in the UK. The Fourteenth Army in Burma and British Pacific Fleet are sometimes referred to as the "forgotten army" and "forgotten fleet", the main concern in Britain being demobilisation and rebuilding. In an election broadcast of June 13th Churchill listed completion of the war with Japan as the first of five tasks to come, but housing was the biggest issue amongst the electorate followed by jobs, social security and nationalisation. The celebrations of VE Day soon passed, and worldwide shortages actually saw rations reduced, lard and bacon rations going from two and four ounces to just one and three in May 1945.
All that said, VJ Day still saw two days of public holidays as after VE Day. The Imperial War Museum have [photographs] (http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/11-photos-of-vj-day-celebrations) and British Pathé have [film] (http://www.britishpathe.com/video/vj-day-london-celebrations-1) of celebrations, it was certainly a time of jubilation, but not to the extent of VE Day.
Follow up question. What was the allied effort that was going to be directed to assisting the Americans in invading Japan? Germany was handled first and it seems like solely the Americans were preparing to invade Japan except minor Russian incursion in the north. Were other Allied (mainly European) nations planning to expend significant support in defeating Japan as well??