Concurrently, the British-led Southeast Asia Command, fresh from their success in reconquering Burma from Japanese hands, drew up plans to recapture Japanese-held Malaya, codenamed Operation Zipper.

However, the sudden surrender of Japan in the face of Soviet conquests in Manchuria and Sakhalin Islands, and the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forestalled all the plans.

Meanwhile, the port facilities in George Town, which had been used by the submarine fleets of the Axis navies, were by then heavily damaged by the repeated Allied aerial bombardment of the city.

The task force arrived off Penang Island on 28 August, met by a small fishing boat with Japanese officers on board.

Things came to a head when an impatient Vice Admiral Walker issued an ultimatum for the Japanese officers stationed in Penang to sign the surrender documents on his flagship by the morning of 3 September.

After raising the Union Jack, the Royal Marines, led by a local band, marched to the Eastern & Oriental Hotel, where representatives of the Asian communities in Penang were waiting to formally hand back the city's administration to the British.

Subsequent Royal Marine landing parties then took over the important military facilities on Penang Island, including the Bayan Lepas Airport and a seaplane base at Gelugor.

[6] However, hunger riots broke out across Penang Island, as years of brutal Japanese occupation took their toll on the depleted food supplies.

Concurrently on 1 April 1946, the Straits Settlements was dissolved, and the now separate British crown colonies of Penang and Malacca became part of the Malayan Union.