Supreme Commander (6 page)

Even more awesome than this ship were the many hundreds of sailors and soldiers packed on board, pointing and staring down at them as if they were an exotic species from a zoo.

From where they stood the eleven men had an excellent view of the American battleship
Iowa
and the British battleship
King George V
, each a mere 45,000 tons (like the
Missouri
), poignant reminders of the fate of the even mightier 70,000-ton
Yamato
and its sister ship
Musashi
, both now resting on the bottom of the sea.

As instructed, the Japanese made their way up the gangway and proceeded to their assigned positions on the deck, where they saw mounted on the bulkhead, under glass, the thirty-one-star American flag used by Matthew Perry when he entered Tokyo Bay in 1853. The walk was very slow and difficult for them, led by Foreign Minister Shigemitsu with his prosthetic leg. Some fifteen years earlier his left leg had been blown off in a terrorist attack in Shanghai. Fortunately there happened to be a Canadian doctor available at the time, one whose quick work had saved Shigemitsu's life. The man's name was Moore Cosgrave.

Facing the Japanese delegation were the representatives of nine Allied nations and the Supreme Command. Shigemitsu stared ahead, then saw a man he thought he recognized, smiling at him. Shigemitsu blinked with disbelief. His heart leaped with joy.

It was Moore Cosgrave, now the signatory for Canada.

 

FOR THE JAPANESE
there was nothing to do but stand and wait, as one of them later put it, “like penitent boys awaiting the dreaded schoolmaster . . . subjected to the torture of the pillory. A million eyes seemed to beat on us with the million shafts of a rattling storm of arrows barbed with fire. . . . Never had I realized that staring eyes could hurt so much.” Observed one of the American officers on the ship: “The whole scene was as if a huge lion had cornered a tiny, helpless-looking mouse in a cage. If there ever was a scene that brought home to me how sad a defeated nation can be—this scene was it.” For Kase, what was to come was as much of a surprise as what had just happened to Shigemitsu. Kase, who had studied for six years in the United States, undoubtedly knew of the Gettysburg Address. Had he been a student of history, he might well have wondered what it must have been like in 1863 to hear Lincoln utter his memorable words.

What he didn't know was that inside the ship was a very serious student of history, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, getting ready to give his speech. As an expert on America, Kase certainly knew who Arthur Vandenberg was: the powerful Michigan senator and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who had urged a conciliatory attitude toward Japan in the late 1930s, only to be rebuffed by President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull.

Vandenberg, after hearing what Kase was now about to hear in person, would call MacArthur's speech the greatest American speech since the Gettysburg Address.

It was now nine o'clock. The door of the bulkhead opened, and out emerged Admiral Halsey, Admiral Nimitz, and General MacArthur. They had rehearsed this event at least a dozen times, scheduling the next twenty minutes with military precision, even to the point of using a stopwatch. Halsey and Nimitz took their assigned places. MacArthur stepped up to the microphone near the table and began to speak.

We are gathered here, representative of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored. The issues, involving divergent ideals and ideologies, have been determined on the battlefields of the world and hence are not for discussion or debate. Nor is it for us here to meet, representing as we do a majority of the peoples of the earth, in a spirit of distrust, malice or hatred.

But rather it is for us, both victors and vanquished, to rise to that higher dignity which alone benefits the sacred purposes we are about to serve, committing all our people unreservedly to faithful compliance with the understanding they are here formally to assume.

It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past—a world founded upon faith and understanding—a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish—for freedom, tolerance and justice.

The terms and conditions upon which the surrender of the Japanese Imperial Forces is here to be given and accepted are contained in the instrument of surrender now before you.

As Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, I announce it my firm purpose, in the tradition of the countries I represent, to proceed in the discharge of my responsibilities with justice and tolerance, while taking all necessary dispositions to insure that the terms of surrender are fully, promptly and faithfully complied with.

What stirring eloquence, what a noble vision! thought Kase, who later wrote in his memoir: “Here is the victor announcing the verdict to the prostrate enemy. He can exact his pound of flesh if he so chooses. He can impose a humiliating penalty if he so desires.” Yet he does not. Instead, he pleads for freedom, tolerance, and justice. “For me, who expected the worst humiliation, this was a complete surprise. I was thrilled beyond words, spellbound, thunderstruck.” Instead of suffering unbearable embarrassment, Kase found the scene on the quarterdeck of the
Missouri
to have been “an altar of peace” and MacArthur an extraordinary man.

MacArthur continued for a few more minutes, then motioned for the Japanese to come forward to sign the surrender. There were two documents, one for Japan and one for the United States. Foreign Minister Shigemitsu, dressed in London-style top hat, cutaway coat, and striped trousers, hobbled forward, escorted by Kase, holding his left arm for additional support. He took off his silk hat, laid it on the table, took off his white gloves, put his hat back on his head, and finally put both hat and gloves down. He was trembling. He looked at one signature page, then the other, wondering which one—the American or the Japanese—to sign first. The seconds went by, the stopwatch must be ticking.

“Sutherland,” MacArthur's voice rang out like a pistol shot, “show him where to sign!” MacArthur's chief of staff stepped forward, showed the poor gentleman where to sign, and Shigemitsu eagerly affixed his signature on behalf of the emperor of Japan and the Japanese government. Next, for the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, was General Umezu, dressed in the olive garb of a general officer and making it abundantly clear by his unpressed pants and scruffy shoes that for him this was no purgatory. He signed. MacArthur cast him a look of contempt. Little did he know that this was probably the most honorable Japanese general of the entire war, a man who single-handedly had stopped Japan from unleashing on America its biological weapons of mass destruction.

It was now eight minutes past nine, time for MacArthur to sign. He called on Wainwright and Percival—survivors of brutal Japanese captivity—to stand behind him as he sat down and pulled five pens from his shirt pocket. He was to sign in his capacity as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. He signed his name using one pen for “Doug” and gave it to Wainwright, another pen for “las” and gave it to Percival. With the third pen he wrote “Mac,” this one to be given to West Point. With the fourth he wrote the end part of his last name—“Arthur”—for his aide General Whitney. With the fifth he wrote his full name, this pen for the U.S. government. He was not finished. Reaching into another pocket, he pulled out a sixth pen and signed his full name again, this pen for his wife and son. Even MacArthur, it seemed, wanted a souvenir.

Now the Allied nations signed. Admiral Nimitz signed for the United States. Eight other nations followed: China, the United Kingdom, the USSR, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. There was an embarrassing moment—causing the proceedings to fall behind schedule specified by the rehearsal stopwatch—where one of the representatives signed on the wrong line. “Fix it!” barked MacArthur, whereupon an American aide rushed up, crossed out the signature, and had the man sign his name again in the proper space. Two of the Japanese delegates managed a smile: Even momentous events like this could have a moment of levity.

When all the representatives finished signing, MacArthur stepped forward and announced: “Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.” He paused for a dramatic moment, then proclaimed: “These proceedings are now closed.”

No one said a word. It was a ceremony conducted with extreme dignity, words carefully chosen—no gloating, no military bands, no thumping of drums. As the Japanese turned around and began to file out, MacArthur leaned over and whispered in Admiral Halsey's ear, “Start 'em up, Bill.” Halsey gave the signal. From the east came a tremendous roar: Overhead a massed flight of four hundred silver B-29 Superfortress bombers and fifteen hundred blue navy fighters started to appear, coming closer and closer as everyone looked up at them flying overhead on their way to Tokyo—a loud display of American power to the Japanese nation. The calm, flat ocean reverberated with the sound: The thunder was deafening.

Then the clouds broke suddenly and the sun came out, a perfect symbol to capture the spirit of the day. No doubt, joked an American reporter, MacArthur ordered that one, too. It was like Babe Ruth pointing to the exact spot in right field before hitting a home run, said a Japanese reporter.

As the thunder faded and people returned their gaze to the surrender desk, there was no MacArthur. He had vanished. He was inside the ship, on his way down to the radio room to broadcast the major portion of his speech for the day, this one for the American people. This speech, probably even more than his words before the signing, was his real Gettysburg Address. Speeches in print never have the resonance they do when heard, but here is a speech worth quoting in its entirety. It is one man's attempt to put the surrender event in its full context. Because it was written and delivered by a victorious general enjoying unprecedented authority, it was read and reread countless times by millions of Japanese, looking for hidden meanings portending their future.

Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death—the seas bear only commerce—men everywhere walk uptight in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed and in this reporting to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way. I speak for the unnamed brave millions homeward bound to take up the challenge of that future which they did so much to salvage from the brink of disaster.

As I look back on the long, tortuous trail from those grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire world lived in fear; when democracy was on the on the defensive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that He has given us the faith, the courage and the power with which to mould victory.

We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war.

A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concept of war.

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, Leagues of Nations all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war.

The utter destructiveness of war now blots out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advance in science, art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.

We stand in Tokyo today reminiscent of our countryman, Commodore Perry ninety-two years ago. His purpose was to bring to Japan an era of enlightenment and progress by lifting the veil of isolation to the friendship, trade and commerce of the world. But alas the knowledge thereby gained of Western science was forged into an instrument of oppression and human enslavement. Freedom of expression, freedom of action, even freedom of thought were denied through suppression of liberal education, through appeal to superstition and through the application of force.

We are committed by the Potsdam Declaration of principles to see that the Japanese people are liberated from this condition of slavery. It is my purpose to implement this commitment just as rapidly as the armed forces are demobilized and the other essential steps taken to neutralize the war potential. The energy of the Japanese race, if properly directed, will enable expansion vertically rather than horizontally. If the talents of the race are turned into constructive channels, the country can lift itself from its present deplorable state into a position of dignity.

To the Pacific basin has come the vista of a new emancipated world. Today, freedom is on the offensive, democracy is on the march. Today, in Asia as well as in Europe, unshackled peoples are tasting the full sweetness of liberty, the relief from fear.