In the autumn of 1945, World War II surrender ceremonies took place across the Japanese Empire. The one in China was held at the Forbidden City in Beijing bringing an end to eight years of occupation. Thousands of people watched the incredible moment Japanese generals handed over their swords. The United States, China, Russia and the United Kingdom were all represented. John Stanfield, now 103, is the last surviving British person who was there. He recalls to Josephine McDermott how he signed the surrender declaration documents on behalf of the British.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

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Vogue's war correspondent Lee Miller found herself in Adolf Hitler's Munich apartment when the news broke that he was dead.

Earlier that day, she and fellow photographer David Scherman had witnessed the harrowing scenes at the liberated Dachau concentration camp.

Lee Miller's son and biographer, Antony Penrose, explains to Josephine McDermott the significance of the photograph taken in the final days of World War II in Europe.

(Photo: Lee Miller in Hitler's bathtub. Credit: David E. Scherman © Courtesy Lee Miller Archives)

On 25 January 1933 the last legal communist march was held in Berlin.

Just a few days later Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

Soon the Communist Party was banned and the Nazi grip on power was complete.

Eric Hobsbawm was a schoolboy communist at the time. He spoke to Andrew Whitehead in 2012.

(Photo: Communist rally 1932. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In the early hours of 17 May 1943 a bold World War II attack destroyed two dams in the Ruhr Valley in Germany's industrial heartland, causing 1,600 casualties and catastrophic flooding which hampered the German war effort.

The dams were highly protected but 617 Squadron of the Royal Air Force had a new weapon – the bouncing bomb.

Invented by Barnes Wallis, the weapon was designed to skip over the dams' defences and explode against the sides.

The Dambusters mission was a huge propaganda success for Britain and later inspired a famous film.

In 2013, Simon Watts spoke to George "Johnny" Johnson, the last survivor of the Dambusters squadron.

(Photo: Squadron Leader George "Johnny" Johnson. Credit: Leon Neal via Getty Images)

Beginning in 1940 thousands of German children were evacuated to camps in the countryside to avoid the bombs of World War Two.

These camps were seen as safe places where they could continue their education but also where Nazi beliefs could be taught.

Alex Collins has listened to archive recordings from "Haus der Geschichte der Bundersrepublik Deutschland" in Bonn one of Germany's national history museums and hears the stories of former camp residents Gunter Stoppa and Klaus Reimer.

You may find some of the contents distressing.

(Photo: German children being evacuated to Prussia. Credit: Getty Images)

Peter Royle, 103, endured a month of solid fighting in the hills outside of Tunis in 1943. Eventually the Allies prevailed and took more than 250,000 German and Italian prisoners of war. They declared victory in Tunisia on 13 May.

Peter came close to dying many times. He recalls how he once hummed God Save the King to prevent himself being shot by friendly fire. He was under the command of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, fresh from victory in the North African desert, and recalls him being inspirational to the troops.

This episode is presented by Josephine McDermott. Ahead of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2025, the BBC is trying to gather as many first-hand accounts from surviving veterans as possible, to preserve for future generations.

Working with a number of partners, including the Normandy Memorial Trust and the Royal British Legion, the BBC has spoken to many men and women who served during the war. We are calling the collection World War Two: We were there.

(Photo: Peter Royle in battle kit in 1941. Credit: Peter Royle's family)

In May 1943, the uprising in the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw in Poland came to an end.

The Germans had crushed the uprising and deported surviving ghetto residents to concentration camps.

Simha "Kazik" Rotem was one of the Jewish fighters who survived to tell his story.

He spoke to Louise Hidalgo in 2010.

(Photo: Warsaw Ghetto. Credit: HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

In 2009, Rudolf Brazda, one of the last known survivors of the Pink Triangles, returned to the former site of Buchenwald concentration camp where he’d been imprisoned during World War Two, for being gay in Nazi Germany.

In never previously broadcast recordings, taped by Jean-Luc Schwab, who wrote Rudolf’s biography, we hear Rudolf’s reaction to returning as a 95-year-old man.

Jean-Luc Schwab who became friends with Rudolf in the last few years of his life, speaks to Reena Stanton-Sharma.

This programme contains distressing details.

(Photo: Rudolf Brazda. Credit: Frederick Florin/ Getty Images)

Despite facing malnutrition, starvation and disease, Christopher John Huckstep's father set up a school in the Japanese internment camp where his family was sent in 1943.

Herbert Huckstep ensured the 350 children of Lunghwa Civilian Assembly Centre were taught a wide range of subjects using brown paper bags to write on. The school was called Lunghwa Academy and it had its own badge, motto and certificates. A syllabus was followed, exams were taken and there were even evening classes for adults.

The Japanese set up more than 20 internment camps in China and Hong Kong holding an estimated 14,000 people, but it is not believed that such a sophisticated schooling system was established elsewhere.

In spite of the many hardships, educational standards were kept so high that qualifications taken in the camp were later recognised by the Cambridge exam board when the exam scripts were taken to England after the war.

Christopher John Huckstep shares his memories with Josephine McDermott.

(Photo: Christopher John Huckstep and other children at Lunghwa Civilian Assembly Centre, Shanghai, in 1945. Credit: Oscar Seepol. Image courtesy of Susannah Stapleton and Special Collections, University of Bristol Library)

The 1 September 1939 was Kitty Baxter’s ninth birthday, it was also the day her life and millions of other people’s changed with the beginning of World War Two.

Kitty was among the hundreds of thousands of children taken out of UK cities and into the countryside, away from the risk of German bombs.

She’s been speaking to Laura Jones.

(Photo: child evacuees leaving a London train station. Credit: Getty Images)