Supreme Commander

by Seymour Morris, Jr.

  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.

  In the Philippines, America has evolved a modern era for this new free world of Asia. In the Philippines, America has demonstrated that peoples of the East and peoples of the West may walk side by side in mutual respect and with mutual benefit. The history of our sovereignty there has now the full confidence of the East.

  And so, my fellow countrymen, today I report to you that your sons and daughters have served you well and faithfully with the calm, deliberate, determined fighting spirit of the American soldier and sailor based upon a tradition of historical trait, as against the fanaticism of an enemy supported only by mythological fiction, their spiritual strength and power has brought us through to victory. They are homeward bound—take care of them.

  In this speech MacArthur sent several powerful messages. He recognized that the atom bomb had made the “traditional concept of war” obsolete. He reminded the Japanese that he came only as Matthew Perry had, to open up Japan and help it become a major power. He assured them that their talents, properly utilized, could lead to a new era of “dignity,” “liberty,” and “relief from fear.”

  Nobody listened more intently than the eleven Japanese in the radio room of the destroyer taking them back to shore, Toshikazu Kase doing his best to provide a simultaneous translation. “Is it not rare good fortune,” asked Kase when the speech was finished, “that a man of such caliber and character should have been designated as the supreme commander who will shape the destiny of Japan?”

  In the meantime, crowded into Admiral Halsey’s cabin after the speech were all the Allied commanders. They wanted a drink. “If ever a day demanded champagne, this was it, but I could serve them only coffee and doughnuts,” recalled Halsey. The Missouri, per MacArthur’s orders, would be a dry zone.

  Upon arriving back in Tokyo, Kase prepared his written report for Shigemitsu to deliver to the emperor. At the end of the report he raised a question: Whether it would have been possible for Japan, had it been the victor, to embrace the vanquished with a similar magnanimity? His answer was no. Returning from his audience with the emperor, Shigemitsu told Kase that Hirohito agreed.

  Thinking about what MacArthur had tried to communicate on board the Missouri, Kase concluded: “We were not beaten on the battlefields by dint of superior arms. We were defeated by a nobler ideal. The real issue was moral.”

  5

  “Down but Not Out”

  If we allow the pain and humility to breed within us the dark thoughts of future revenge, our spirit will be warped and perverted into a morbidly base design. . . . But if we use this pain and humiliation as a spur to self-reflection and reform, and if we make this self-reflection and reform the motive force for a great constructive effort, there is nothing to stop us from building, out of the ashes of our defeat, a magnificent new Japan.

  —NIPPON TIMES

  (on the surrender ceremony)

  FOR YEARS THE Japanese people had been spoon-fed a panoply of lies breathtaking in audacity. According to the relentless propaganda of the militarists, Japan had conquered the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies, New Guinea, Australia, Hawaii, even the West Coast of the United States.

  The specifics would have astounded even those masters of lies, the Nazis and the Soviets. The Japanese navy was on a roll. Midway was just a blip on the horizon. As the American navy attempted to cross the Pacific, the Japanese propaganda drums continued their relentless beat of fabrications. Believing what they were being told, hundreds of Japanese villages erected Charen Kensho-tu—monuments to the victorious dead—as though Japan’s enemies had already surrendered. Little did they know that most Japanese warships were resting on the bottom of the deep Pacific. The more specific the claim, the more outrageous the lie. Okinawa, the government announced, would be the war’s sekigahara (decisive battle). (Certainly it had better be, given that Okinawa was only one day’s sail from the southern Japanese islands.)

  Lies, once started, inevitably grow into bigger lies—impossible lies. The Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, after the news of the American invasion of Okinawa, insisted there was nothing to worry about, the 180,000 American soldiers and marines had been allowed to land so Japanese kamikazes could sink their supporting ships and isolate the invaders on the island, where they would be destroyed.

  When U.S. broadcasts announced on June 21 that Okinawa had surrendered, people in Japan realized that the war had not been going like they were being told and invasion of the homeland was imminent. For months now, many had suspected as much, beginning with the March 9 raid on Tokyo by Gen. Jimmy Doolittle. It was the greatest single destruction in the history of warfare. Conventional bombs were used. In the ensuing firestorm, in just a few hours 84,000 people burned to death and one million people were left wandering the streets, their homes and apartment buildings reduced to rubble.* Fifteen square miles were totally destroyed.

  The knowledge that the homeland was open to attack must have hit Japan like a thunderbolt. Yet Japan did not surrender, even though the imperial headquarters had concluded in mid-1944 that the cause was hopeless. Japan’s stubbornness was extraordinary. Five months later, after the Tokyo raids, with the knockout weapon finally perfected and made available, President Truman must have reflected on how the destruction of Tokyo had failed to get the message across. It certainly had not been for want of trying. Before bombing Tokyo the United States had sent planes over the city to drop leaflets warning civilians to evacuate immediately. Titled “Appeal to the People,” the leaflet stated: “You are not the enemy of America. Our enemy is the Japanese militarists who dragged you into the war.” No response.

  After the first atom bomb, the Americans again dropped leaflets, threatening more destruction. Again no response. So Truman went ahead and ordered the second bomb.

  The Japanese people, unlike three of the six government ministers who still voted no after the second bomb, were stunned. How could this happen? How could there exist an enemy capable of such devastation?

  When a bomb as powerful as the one at Hiroshima or Nagasaki is dropped on a defenseless city, one would expect an outpouring of national outrage. MacArthur certainly thought so, whic
h is why he had opposed the measure. Only it didn’t happen. The national outrage over the atom bomb was directed not at the Americans but at the Japanese militarists who had undertaken such a brutal war and lied to the people.

  To salvage their pride in the shame of defeat, the Japanese elevated the Americans: The militarists brought it on us! How could we have possibly beaten a country as strong as America? There would be no hatred for the destruction America had brought about, no hatred of the conqueror. The time had come for Japan to reject the past.

  MacArthur would go after the militarists. He would purge them and throw them in jail. He had a secret weapon in mind: women. On the plane ride to Atsugi he had discussed the fate of Japan with General Fellers. “It’s very simple,” said MacArthur. “We’ll use the instrumentality of the Japanese government to implement the Occupation.”

  Fellers was baffled: What in the world was MacArthur talking about?

  “We’re going to give Japanese women the vote.”

  “The Japanese men won’t like it,” responded Fellers.

  “I don’t care. I want to destroy the military. Women don’t want war.” End of discussion.

  The militarists, MacArthur knew, were up to no good. In the two weeks of grace between the surrender announcement on August 15 and the August 29 arrival of Col. Charles Tench’s C-47s at Atsugi and Admiral Halsey’s fleet of 263 vessels in Tokyo Bay, vast stockpiles of food and industrial raw materials had disappeared into black markets and secret warehouses—the work of militarists hoping to win political support by giving away free supplies. Even more outrageous were the actions of the War Ministry, complicit in this subterfuge: It had ordered its officials and field commanders to destroy all records of where these supplies were located. These ministry officials would soon find themselves out of a job and probably arrested and put on trial for war crimes. But in the meantime MacArthur had a crisis on his hands. People in the streets were starving. After his one-egg breakfast on his second day, he had immediately sent a cable to Washington ordering the shipment of 3.5 million tons of food. Getting no quick response, he sent a second message: “Give me bread or give me bullets.”