Centuries before, the ancient Romans developed the custom of forcing their defeated enemies to “pass under the yoke.” Prisoners were led, hands tied, under a wooden crosspiece used to subjugate a pair of oxen. He concocted a particularly powerful scene for the final act of World War II. The general was an avid student of military history.
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The overwhelming superiority of American forces would be on full display. MacArthur barged into Tokyo Bay with an armada of 258 combat ships, vessels that helped shrink the Japanese sphere of influence back to the shores of the home islands.
One thing they could all agree on was that the United States was the new big kid on this block. Meanwhile, the Missouri’s war-weary sailors looked upon the event as an unnecessary ego-fest staged by starched generals and admirals.Ĭelebrations of V-J Day on the homefront: A crowd gathers in Times Square. It was a day destined to appear in every history book for centuries. For the Allied top brass, this sacred rite was the culmination of the greatest conflict the world had ever known. In the name of honor, dignity, and circumstance, MacArthur was doing things differently. Eisenhower expressly discouraged a “Hollywood show.” He didn’t even attend. Next to MacArthur’s sprawling pageant, a royal wedding would have looked like a middle-school play.īy contrast, Germany’s surrender to Allied forces nearly four months before had taken place in a small dimly lit French schoolhouse, in the middle of the night. The 31-star ensign, under glass, was mounted backward to be properly displayed on the Missouri’s starboard side bulkhead. MacArthur had Perry’s flag flown in from the collection of the U.S. Perry had come ashore for the first time, when he had forced Japan to sign a treaty opening ports to U.S. The Missouri’s location was chosen because at that very spot in 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Japan’s surrender would take place in Tokyo Bay but miles south of the city of Tokyo. And then there was the business with a flag.
Worried that his slow gait might interfere with the occasion’s precise timing, officers ordered a sailor to limp the approach with a sawed-off broom handle in order to simulate Shigemitsu’s ponderous strides to the veranda deck. One of the Japanese representatives, Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, had a wooden leg. Sailors improvised by quickly unbolting a larger substitute from the deck of a mess hall and covering it with a not-so-clean green tablecloth. On top of that, America’s fighting forces had to attend to the needs of 225 news correspondents and 75 photographers.Ī mahogany table, provided by the British, was clearly too small for the leather and gold portfolios holding the surrender documents. destroyers deployed as water taxis for shuttling VIPs to the Missouri. The operation involved hundreds of documents, dignitaries, and delegates, not to mention the precise coordination of four U.S. Hard-boiled combat leaders played the role of exasperated headmasters, fretting over the appearance, placement, and proper behavior of thousands of marines and sailors scheduled to be in attendance. Men scrubbed the warship white-glove spotless. The September 2, 1945, ceremony aboard the 45,000-ton battleship USS Missouri was a logistical nightmare for MacArthur’s staff and the ship’s crew. Japan’s public surrender ceremony was a momentous occasion that required flawless execution.
Even though the war was over, General Douglas MacArthur was embroiled in one final complex campaign.
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