Peace on Earth
As General Anami’s men prepared his body for cremation, half a world away the President of the United States was standing in the Oval Room of the White House. The office was a bedlam as photographers snapped pictures of the group centered around Truman’s desk. Generals, admirals, statesmen, all listened as the Chief Executive, cool-looking in a summer suit, read from a paper.
“I have just received a note from the Japanese Government in reply to the message forwarded to that Government by the Secretary of State on August 11. I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan. In the reply there is no qualification.…”
The man who had insisted on qualifications lay dead on a bedroom floor in Tokyo. While his servants mourned, America went wild with joy.
In the villages, towns and main cities, emotions spilled over into a reckless pursuit of pleasure. Times Square was choked with a surging mob of carefree human beings, who kissed and laughed, drank and made love in the midst of bright lights blazing again after a long war.
In the nation’s capital, crowds milled around the White House and waited for Truman to appear. He did so, and made a short speech to the masses lining the railings. They cheered his every sentence, then applauded him as he moved back inside to call his mother in Independence, Missouri. The excited throngs spread to the downtown area and proceeded to lose their inhibitions. Soldiers jumped into passing cars to kiss unprotesting women. In front of the Washington Post newspaper building, a soldier and a girl got out of a taxi and started to take off their clothes, to the encouragement of an enthusiastic group of well-wishers shouting, “Take it off!” “All the way!” “’Atta girl!” The couple stripped completely, then dressed in each other’s clothes; the girl put on shorts, pants and shirt while the soldier struggled into bra, panties, slip and dress, to the applause of the bystanders. Then the two exhibitionists jumped into the cab and were swallowed up in the dusk.
Though few cities could claim such ardent demonstrations of joy, the pattern of behavior was similar in many places. That night the G.I. was king and he knew it. The police in most places tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. Their orders were to maintain some semblance of peace but to avoid excessive controls.
In San Francisco, more control was desperately needed. In this city surrounded by Navy installations, the news of surrender had come just before four o’clock in the afternoon. The Navy immediately took over. Sailors got drunk and civilians joined them. By evening the celebration was out of hand.
Car after car was stolen and driven by crazed men who tore recklessly through the busy streets. Several people were struck down and killed while the motorists drove on, oblivious to the horror behind them. Young women found that being out among celebrating countrymen could be disastrous. People stood by horrified as at least six girls were forcibly thrown to the sidewalks, held down and repeatedly raped. No one moved to their aid. Policemen watching the assaults looked the other way, afraid to confront the liquor-sodden servicemen. Windows were smashed in the downtown shopping area, liquor stores were looted clean. A pedestrian walking down a side street was hit on the head by a basketful of bottles loosed from an upper-story window, and died of a fractured skull. Well into the morning hours, San Francisco continued in the grip of rioters who knew no authority. During the nightlong celebration of peace in that city, twelve people died.
In Manila, Filipinos groped about in the ruins of their once beautiful city. Laid waste only months before by the savage block-by-block defense of the trapped Japanese, the capital of the Philippines was slowly being rebuilt by the energies of its people who, more than any other, knew the horrors of war in the Pacific. Among the shouts of joy that day were the muted sobs of those mourning their dead still beneath the ruins.
On the outskirts of the city stood Bilibid Prison, the infamous home of countless American and Filipino captives during the Japanese occupation. The sighs of these hopeless souls still haunted its cavernous interior. So many had wasted away there in body and mind in the grim days after Bataan. So few had survived.
Now, in August 1945, Bilibid housed as prisoners the former captors, Japanese soldiers. Little by little since February, these emaciated remnants of General Yamashita’s huge army had been flushed from hiding places in the formidable hill country; now they wandered around the courtyards and corridors of Bilibid in a continual daze. Though happy to be alive and eating sufficiently well, they felt that they could never go home again. Since capture was a disgrace, most of the prisoners thought their families and friends in Japan would treat them with contempt if ever they set foot in the Home Islands. They were the living dead.
The surrender news came in a paper brought into the jail by a soldier. The Japanese crowded around an interpreter, who read the startling information to a growing group of prisoners. Some stared at him disbelievingly. Others broke down into loud sobbing and wandered away into the cool shadows of the yard. It was almost too much to comprehend. They could go home, but to what?
North of the prison, in the remote fastnesses of Luzon, the American foot soldier still held his rifle ready. For months the Thirty-second Division had pursued the stubborn enemy through the jungle and mountains, trying to beat the last resistance out of him. The Thirty-second had been killing Japanese for three long years. By August of 1945, the end was in sight, but the killing went on.
At 8:00 A.M. on the fifteenth, Truman’s surrender announcement came through to the soldiers on Luzon. The Japanese were not informed. Two hours later, they rushed the command post of Company A, 128th Infantry Regiment, and killed one more American. In the afternoon, another unit was cut off temporarily by a determined assault on its position in the hills. When the news of the surrender was passed up to them, one G.I. observed caustically, “Yeah, the war’s over. It’s all over this goddamn hill.” The sound of artillery fire punctuated his remark.
Off the coast of Japan, the fast carriers of Bull Halsey’s fleet prepared to renew the attack on the morning of the fifteenth. The order for a temporary lull in bombing activity had expired. At 6:15 the last of 176 planes had taken off from the pitching decks for sweeps against targets in the Tokyo area.
Just then an urgent message crackled into the radio room: CESTCPAC: SUSPEND ATTACK AIR OPERATIONS X ACKNOWLEDGE.
Halsey ordered his signal officer to contact the departed aircraft. Seventy-three of them were raised by radio and recalled to the fleet. The other 103 planes were over the mainland, strafing, bombing and fighting off 45 Japanese planes which rose to the last challenge of the Pacific War.
Another message arrived for Halsey on the bridge!
CEASE OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS AGAINST JAPANESE FORCES X CONTINUE SEARCHES AND PATROLS X MAINTAIN DEFENSE AND INTERNAL SECURITY MEASURES AT HIGHEST LEVEL AND BEWARE OF TREACHERY OR LAST MOMENT ATTACKS BY ENEMY FORCES OR INDIVIDUALS.
The thousands of men in the Third Fleet knew now that the war was truly over.
When the pilots returned from the Tokyo raid, they were elated. On the San Jacinto, they rushed from their planes to tell how they had shot down twelve enemy fighters. Nobody paid any attention to them. Men kept saying, “Who cares?” Like children with a great story to tell, the pilots raced around from officer to officer to recite the impressive story of the dogfight over Japan. No one was impressed anymore. The war was over.
In Tokyo, the Emperor had scheduled a meeting with his top advisers for ten o’clock in the morning, but because of the rebellion of the preceding hours, it was postponed until 11:15.
Major Hidemasa Koga walked through the forest into the headquarters of the Guards Division, where General Mori’s body lay in state. Koga had been revolted when this gracious, fair officer was shot dead by Hatanaka. For the rest of the night, he had wandered in a daze, unnerved and disillusioned by the violence he had witnessed in the name of the Emperor. His concept of a coup did not include murdering loyal soldiers. He had been party to a terrible wrong.
Koga gazed down at Mori lying in the wooden coffin. Kneeling at the general’s feet, he placed a pistol to his own chest, pulled the trigger, and died on the floor beside his commanding officer.
Outside the Emperor’s palace, two men were seen distributing handbills to strolling pedestrians. One man was on a horse, the other on a motorcycle. They were Hatanaka and Shiizaki, who had emerged from the wooded area inside the compound to explain their actions to the public. They stopped people and forced leaflets on them. Then the two disappeared again into the forest of pine trees near the Double Bridge Gate.
Shiizaki knelt down on the ground and drew out a ceremonial dagger. Facing toward the interior of the palace grounds, he ripped open his stomach and fell unconscious to the grass.
Hatanaka stood a short distance away. His attempt to obstruct the peace had failed miserably. A gentle man by nature, he had resorted to extreme violence and killed a man mourned by many. Balked at every turn, he had no recourse but to follow Anami and the others in death.
Hatanaka raised the pistol with which he had murdered Mori nine hours before. He placed it between his eyes and pulled the trigger. His fragile features dissolved in blood.
Passers-by heard the report of the gun but passed on without stopping. The morning sun warmed the grass around the palace and glistened on the red stains spreading under the trees.