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The Bible says there is a time for all things: "A time
to plant and a time to uproot what is planted; a time to
kill, and a time to heal." When Hitler launched his panzers
into Poland in the early morning hours of September 1, 1939, he began a time to kill. Six years and one day later on the
cool, cloudy morning of September 2, 1945 in Tokyo Bay,
Japan, documents were signed that officially ended the
killing and began the healing.
MacArthur planned the ceremony with precise timing. At exactly 0850 hours the General was piped aboard the Missouri. At 0855 a launch from the destroyer USS Lansdowne brought the Japanese delegation. A bos'n's pipe shrilled, and the first member of the 11 man Japanese surrender party struggled his way up the ship's companionway. Mamoru Shigemitsu the new Japanese Foreign Minister had a wooden leg, the result of a 1932 assassination attempt. Shigemitsu, who represented the Emperor and the government, wore a frock coat, striped pants, and a silk top hat. Twice during the war he had served as Foreign Minister. Both times he had sought an end to the war. For Shigemitsu, his role in the ceremony was painful, but he knew it marked a new beginning; from this "day of national mortification," Japan could start "onward toward the goal... of a peaceful state." Behind Shigemitsu came his polar opposite, the Japanese Army's Chief of Staff, Yoshijiro Umezu, who represented the Imperial General Headquarters. Umezu was one of the die-hards--advocates of national hara-kiri. The general and most of Japan's other military leaders wanted to sacrifice every man, woman, and child to the Japanese warrior ethic; the mindset that forced the atomic bombings. The Emperor himself had to talk the General into going to the surrender ceremony. On the Missouri's deck that morning, Umezu saw the symbolic setting of Japan's rising sun. The General, however, would not live to see the actual setting of that day's sun; after the ceremony he went home and committed hara-kiri. Toshikazu Kase, an aide to |
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