“These Proceedings Are Closed”
September 2, the day of retribution, dawned surprisingly cool. Under leaden skies, four black limousines drove at full speed down the shoreline of Tokyo Bay toward Yokohama. In the first car, General Yoshijiro Umezu sat back and reflected on his role this day. Against his wishes, he had been ordered by the Emperor to represent the armed forces of Japan on the battleship Missouri. Umezu was despondent. Though outwardly he mirrored the image of a samurai warrior, he was a bitter, chagrined man.
Beside him in the car was a frail, bespectacled veteran of the foreign service, Mamoru Shigemitsu. As the delegate of the Gaimusho, the Foreign Office, he too would sign the surrender document.
Shigemitsu shifted uncomfortably as the speeding limousine bounced over holes in the road. In 1932, his left leg had been blown off in China by a terrorist bomb. Because his wooden stump was both clumsy and ill-fitting, the statesman had since lived in constant pain.
The two men wore contrasting uniforms. Umezu was dressed in the olive garb of a general officer. Shiny cavalry boots and a dangling sword added to his military bearing. Shigemitsu was tailored in London style, with top hat, cutaway coat and striped trousers. Like a statesman going to court, he drove through the ruins of his country to meet the enemy.
Past the leveled dock area of Yokohama into the gutted heart of the seaport, the cars sped. At the Prefectural Office, Shigemitsu, Umezu and the nine other members of the delegation got out and stood mutely, waiting to be taken to a ship.
The Americans had provided one for them. Only the night before, Admiral Katsuhei Nakamura, charged with shepherding the Japanese to the ceremony, discovered that not one Japanese vessel in the vicinity was seaworthy. Not even a tugboat was available. His worries were relieved when the Lansdowne was designated as the official ship for the party. Three other destroyers were tied up at the pier to transport press, Allied representatives and MacArthur’s group.
At 7:30 A.M., the Japanese boarded the destroyer, which headed out into the enormous bay for the sixteen-mile run to the Missouri. On every side they could see the truly awesome might of the American Navy, which had converged from all parts of the Pacific and now crowded Tokyo Bay.
Attention centered on Admiral William Halsey’s flagship. The choice of the Missouri as the surrender site had its origins in Washington and reflected the intense rivalry between Army and Navy. Though James Forrestal had wanted Nimitz to conduct the ceremony, MacArthur as Supreme Commander got that assignment. The Navy Secretary then badgered James Byrnes into at least making a naval ship the setting for the drama. As an added lure, he suggested the one named for President Truman’s home state. Thanks to this political horse trade back in America, Bull Halsey was to be host to the ceremony. Whatever the reason, no more fitting choice could have been made.
Halsey had fought the war from the first day. His task force had delivered the last fighters to Midway just before Pearl Harbor. In the dark days in the South Pacific, he had been a ferocious adversary, a combative leader whose profane, salty manner had endeared him to sailors and airmen. Though not a brilliant strategist, Halsey was a tactician of the highest order. In many ways he was the Patton of the Pacific, except that he was far more popular with the G.I.’s, who delighted in telling stories of the admiral’s hatred of the Japanese.
Even after the cease-fire, Halsey was an implacable foe. When the Missouri had first entered Tokyo Bay on August 29, he stood on the bridge with his officers, one of whom pointed at the shore and a huge hospital festooned with red crosses. Halsey peered at it closely and snorted, “Hospital, that’s no hospital. It’s probably one of their biggest goddamn ammunition dumps.” He added, “We ought to string ’em all up.”
On September 2, Halsey was joined by old comrades and allies on the deck of his flagship. Admiral John McCain came aboard. Another man in the Halsey mold, McCain had fought beside Halsey from the beginning. His battered features had won him the nickname “Popeye,” and his service during the war had added luster to his reputation. In the hours before the ceremony, he had a warm reunion with his friends. More relaxed than he had been in years, McCain went around buttonholing old classmates and acquaintances. His cup was full. Ten days later, Admiral John McCain was dead from a heart attack.
A boat came alongside the Missouri that morning carrying Jonathan Wainwright. As the gaunt man stood under the ladder, Halsey reached down and said, “Hi, Skinny.” The general tried to reach up to shake hands. Their fingers touched and tears came to both men’s eyes.
Halsey was enjoying himself tremendously as he presided over the festivities. His flagship was the center of world attention and he had embellished it with an appropriate historical symbol. In full view of the international audience was a faded American flag, vintage 1853, which had been flown by Matthew Perry when he entered Tokyo Bay ninety-two years earlier. It was now too brittle to be hoisted and was instead mounted on a bulkhead over the heads of the participants.
Getting it to Japan had not been easy. Only five days before, Halsey had wired the Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis, requesting immediate delivery of this relic. The young lieutenant who received Halsey’s message saw his opportunity to witness a momentous event and arranged a Number One Priority to deliver the flag in person. From Washington to San Francisco to Pearl Harbor to Kwajalein to Guam to Iwo Jima, Lieutenant John Breymer never let Matthew Perry’s flag out of his sight. Finally he arrived by sea plane at Sagami Bay, and from there carried the precious cloth to the Missouri. He was on hand to watch when the first Japanese pulled himself over the side at 8:55 A.M. on September 2.
That man was Mamoru Shigemitsu. Climbing the swaying rope ladder, behind Colonel Sidney Mashbir, his escort, he had to put unusual pressure on the painful stump of his amputated leg. As his countrymen watched Shigemitsu’s agonizing ascent, several were struck with the similarity between this man’s plight and the condition of their nation. Both were badly crippled, unable to stand.
Umezu followed, and then the others, and finally eleven Japanese were standing on the deck. They arranged themselves in three rows facing the table covered with a green cloth. Across it stood military men from nations still at war with Japan. Toshikazu Kase, Shigemitsu’s aide in the Foreign Office, looked at the many representatives of the awesome coalition and wondered how Japan could ever have conceived of victory. Such madness was almost grimly humorous.
As movie cameras whirred and shutters clicked, the men tensed, waiting for the ceremony to begin. The American uniform of the day was suntans, no tie. They looked oddly casual in such a formal setting. The Japanese seemed stiff and uncomfortable in their ill-fitting, close-necked uniforms and diplomatic attire. Umezu and Shigemitsu stood in the front row of their country’s delegation, staring straight ahead. Colonel Munson’s old friend Ichiji Sugita, in the back row, glanced around and was amazed to see sailors perched precariously on the barrels of sixteen-inch guns to get a better view. Such informality would never be allowed in the Japanese Navy.
The British delegation were dressed in shorts and white knee stockings. The Russians were resplendent in red-epauletted uniforms. The elaborate outfits of the Chinese, French and Canadians contrasted sharply with the American suntans.
At exactly nine o’clock a small door swung open and General Douglas MacArthur, followed by Nimitz and Halsey, strode briskly to the table facing the Japanese. Almost immediately he began to read from the small white paper he carried:
“We are gathered here, representatives 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 our discussion or debate.…”
Another of the Japanese representatives, Admiral Tomioka, glimpsed a familiar face behind MacArthur. For several years the admiral had kept a picture of that man in his office in Tokyo. Daily he had studied it, trying to fathom its owner’s thinking. Regularly he had failed. Now, in September 1945, Tomioka, a naval strategist, stood on the deck of the Missouri and stared intently at Chester Nimitz, his enemy, his rival, his personal antagonist.
Across the deck, General Willoughby, MacArthur’s intelligence chief, was annoyed. Anxious to be in a prominent place on this historic occasion, he had tried to stand as close as possible to his commanding officer. Now a huge Australian general blocked his view and kept him out of any photographs of the scene.
As the general read on, Colonel Sugita’s eyes focused on General Sutherland, who stood behind MacArthur. Chief of Staff Sutherland was leaning over to whisper to British General Percival. Percival turned his head to stare at Sugita. They had met once before. Sugita had been on hand when the Japanese dictated surrender terms to Percival at Singapore in 1942. Both men remembered, and today their eyes met for a long moment.
MacArthur’s hands trembled as he continued: “… 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 of the Allied Powers, it is 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 the surrender are fully, promptly, and faithfully complied with.”
The general stepped back and motioned for the Japanese to sign. There was almost total silence on the great ship as Mamoru Shigemitsu clumped forward to the table. The wind whipped his hair over his forehead as he slowly eased himself into the chair. Placing his silk hat down, he nervously stripped off his yellow gloves and laid them on it. Kase, his aide, hovered at his left shoulder.
Shigemitsu took out a pen and gazed at the document. He seemed puzzled.
MacArthur spoke sharply: “Sutherland. Show him where to sign.” The Chief of Staff went to the table and pointed to the correct line. The embarrassed Foreign Minister flushed, then bent his head as he scrawled his signature. It was 9:04 A.M.
Umezu, Japan’s other signatory, came to the table. Without reading any part of the document, he quickly slashed his name under that of Shigemitsu. Then, his face impassive, he turned away without looking right or left and marched back to his group. Some of the officers in his delegation had tears on their cheeks.
MacArthur then sat down to sign. As he wrote his name in fragments, the first pen went to Wainwright. Percival got the next one. Another was for West Point, then one for the Archives. The fifth was for his aide, Gen. Courtney Whitney. The last was a red-barreled one and it was for his wife, Jean, and his son Arthur, back in Manila. He finished with a flourish, put the red pen in his shirt pocket, and rose.
Admiral Chester Nimitz sat down and signed for the Navy. The other nations followed. When the last signature was inscribed, MacArthur stepped forward and solemnly declared: “Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always. These proceedings are closed.”
When the Japanese delegates went to pick up their copy of the surrender document, a problem arose. The Canadian representative had inadvertently signed on the wrong line. General Sutherland promptly sat down and made appropriate corrections on the paper. The Japanese headed back toward the gangway. As they passed through a cordon of Allied officers, they received very proper salutes. Umezu stared stonily ahead but returned the gesture. His aides gratefully followed suit.
The Japanese filed down the ladder and entered the small boat for the trip back to Tokyo. They were generally pleased at the tone of MacArthur’s remarks. Foreign Office representative Kase scribbled down his impressions to repeat to Hirohito while others questioned him closely about the exact meaning of the message from the Supreme Commander.
Overhead, a massed flight of B-29’s and carrier planes paraded in a final exhibition of the strength that brought an end to an empire, while the sun shone for the first time that day.
Later that day, soldiers of the First Cavalry Division came ashore from transports and formed up on the docks at Yokohama. The Eleventh Airborne Division Band, which had already been in Japan for three days, serenaded the new arrivals with “The Old Gray Mare, She Ain’t What She Used to Be.”
Twenty-four hours before the ceremony on the Missouri ended, far south of Tokyo Bay, a heavy-set man had walked about on a mountainside and brooded about his future. He was not optimistic. Wearily he gazed around his campsite where emaciated men cooked rats over fires and shivered in the summer heat from malaria.
The figure moved toward the center of the clearing. His wrinkled uniform was that of a Japanese general. Tomoyuki Yamashita surveyed the remnants of his army and sighed softly. Three years ago he had commanded a victorious drive that astounded the world. Now he commanded only a dismal retreat. His army was a rabble, existing on vermin while rotting away in the jungles.
The mountain he stood on was called Prog and it rose in the north central highlands of Luzon in the Philippines. There Yamashita had managed to hold off several American divisions closing in on him.
His ordeal had begun the previous October when MacArthur landed at Leyte. At that time Yamashita was brought to the Philippines to stem the irresistible flow of the enemy toward Japan. Though the Japanese had an impressive army in the area, they were woefully deficient in airpower and practically impotent on the sea. Yamashita brought with him an unquestioned talent as a military leader and a fierce determination to bring about a miracle.
His history was impressive. Like many Japanese officers, he was an ardent student of the German military system. In 1940, as head of a military mission, he had gone to Germany to observe at close range the methods employed in Hitler’s lightning conquest of the continent. In 1941 and 1942 he adapted some of these practices to inflict the most stunning defeat the British Empire suffered in the entire war. Miracles were not strange to him; he accomplished one in the jungles of Malaya.
When hostilities began in December 1941, the Japanese war machine needed the resources of the Dutch East Indies in order to survive. The naval bastion of Singapore, at the tip of the Malay peninsula, was a strategic Allied strongpoint that denied access to that area. Yamashita was told to conquer it.
The Japanese who landed on the torturous trails of the Malay peninsula brought a secret weapon with them: the bicycle. Columns of soldiers sped down the trails on wheels while tanks followed and lent their firepower at critical moments. Allied defenders were completely demoralized by the unorthodox tactics.
Yamashita also instituted the first large-scale usage of amphibious landings behind enemy lines. Time after time he cut off enemy divisions holding tenaciously to the narrow peninsula. Repeatedly the defenders were dislodged by such maneuvers.
Inside the British lines, a weary and discouraged General Percival made a fatal mistake. He badly overestimated Yamashita’s strength. Because his own forces had been driven into a disastrous retreat, he could only conclude that the Japanese maintained tremendous reserves of manpower and supplies. Nothing else seemed to account for the pathetic state of his army.
Percival was wrong. At the gates of Singapore, the Japanese halted, concealing a glaring weakness. The British forces actually outnumbered the Japanese by three to one. Yamashita had only thirty thousand men and was almost out of ammunition and food. His supply lines were badly clogged and stretched back hundreds of miles. Japanese troops, already living on two bowls of rice a day, faced starvation unless the fortress surrendered promptly.
Yamashita prepared for one all-out attack. He was convinced that further delay would allow the British time to receive reinforcements by sea and eventually drive back the Japanese.
The first assault troops came across the straits separating Malaya from the island of Singapore, and managed to secure a foothold against a raw and disorganized Australian division. With this beachhead established, the outcome was assured. The British began blowing up their tremendous oil tanks while the Japanese pressed the attack.
On the fourteenth of February, three English officers approached the Japanese lines carrying white flags. The opposing generals met at 7:00 P.M. at the Ford factory on the outskirts of the city. Percival was nervous, shaking and rather pitiable. Yamashita was relaxed, almost serene. His only problem at the moment was his interpreter, who could not seem to translate the technical aspects of the surrender terms. Yamashita finally asked for a yes-or-no answer. Correspondents and soldiers alike assumed he was being belligerent in his statement. Such was not the case. He actually felt sorry for the British general and even wanted to say something consoling to him in his moment of shame. However, he thought better of it and left. When the Japanese Army marched into the city the next day, General Yamashita became a household word in Japan.
His success was short-lived. Apparently afraid of the publicity his subordinate was getting, General Tojo transferred him quickly to the Manchurian border. The Tiger of Malaya disappeared into that quiet backwater of war, watching the Siberian hills and plains for any sign of Russian hostility. His name disappeared from the newspapers in Japan and his image among the people dimmed.
For over two years the uncomplaining soldier remained in oblivion while the war went badly. After Tojo fell from power in 1944, he emerged once more. In Tokyo military strategists correctly foresaw a huge American thrust against the Philippines and chose Yamashita to blunt the attack. In September of 1944 he left Japan for the last time.
His instincts warned his that the decisive battle would be fought on Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines. He planned to concentrate his troops there and wage a stubborn defensive action which would tie up the Americans for many months. His strategy was almost immediately overruled by superiors in Tokyo, who insisted on sending reinforcements to Leyte where Douglas MacArthur had returned to the scene of the greatest disaster in his career.
On October 20, the Americans came in on the beaches of Leyte and MacArthur sat under a palm tree and talked with correspondents about the long road back from Australia. Thirty-one months before he had furtively stolen away from a dock at Corregidor. Behind him he had left the “battling bastards of Bataan.” Since MacArthur had never known defeat in his life, the bitter memory of the debacle on Luzon rankled in him for over two years. On the beach at Leyte, he partially fulfilled his debt to return. The final payment would come later on Luzon.
Disillusioned at the stupid waste of manpower dictated by higher authorities in Japan, Yamashita continued to funnel troops into the maelstrom at Leyte and, in doing so, played right into the hands of the Americans. One infantry general likened the island to a butcher’s market, where the Americans set up shop and waited for the enemy to come in to get killed. Many of the reserves Yamashita had counted on for the ultimate fight on Luzon were lost to him forever.
On January 9, when the Sixth United States Army waded ashore at Lingayen Gulf on Luzon, the last struggle for the Philippines began. Once the massive strength of the Americans was unloaded, the outcome was never in doubt. It was only a question of time. Yamashita withdrew, stopped and fought, retreated, turned and attacked. Slowly the Americans forced him into the mountains. The city of Manila lay open. Yamashita was content to go into the hills, for there he planned to hold out for a long time. He had no intention of fighting for the capital and, though he did not declare it an open city, he took his men away from it and retreated skillfully.
MacArthur himself expected that Manila would be left untouched. He reasoned that it would be too much of an effort for the enemy to maintain an adequate defense within the limits of the city. One million Filipino civilians would act as a dead weight on Japanese supply channels. They had enough trouble feeding themselves without being concerned about the fate of the natives. MacArthur thought the enemy would leave a small rear guard to destroy military objectives such as harbor facilities. Then they would retreat to the south and east and set up another defense line.
His estimate of the situation coincided with Yamashita’s. The Japanese general’s orders were explicit. The installations would be blown up, all supplies removed or destroyed, and a new line established outside the city.
When MacArthur’s troops arrived on the outskirts, it appeared that the Japanese had truly withdrawn. A communiqué was sent out to the world announcing the capture of the city. A triumphal parade was planned. The First Cavalry Division was accorded the honor of leading the procession into the capital. Uniforms were pressed. Speeches were prepared.
Then observation planes flying over the peaceful streets noted large fires burning in the center of the city. Manila was in flames. The Japanese were staying to fight.
American officers were appalled at the news. No one wanted to see the beautiful city become a battlefield. Many of the men around MacArthur had spent years in the Far East and looked upon Manila as one would a home town. To some it was a romantic mistress, to others an adventurous oasis from a former life. The Sixth Army went into battle with heavy hearts.
Up in the mountains, Yamashita assumed that his soldiers had left the capital. Cut off from the rest of his army, he could not know that a naval landing force had entrenched itself inside the walls and erected barricades on the streets in defiance of expressed orders. As usual in Japanese military circles, the Army and Navy seldom agreed on anything. Admiral Okochi, in charge of naval personnel, decided that Manila should be defended and sent Rear Admiral Iwabuchi into the still unmarked city with a vague plan to delay the Americans as long as possible. Iwabuchi and his desperate rear guard did a formidable job.
For nearly one month, into late February, Manila was a slaughterhouse, the scene of multiple atrocities, as Japanese marines fought insanely to defend the strategically unimportant city. In the hills of Luzon, Yamashita could know nothing of the extent of the carnage, but he was advised of the ridiculous rear guard action and ordered the Navy to leave. He even sent an Army relief column to help Iwabuchi’s forces to withdraw. It failed to make contact, but the situation could hardly have been altered anyway.
Meanwhile, harried by advancing American troops, the general strove only to keep his army together. His troops were scattered, but still potent. They occupied the attention of three American divisions which painfully flushed out the survivors in the tangled undergrowth. Yamashita had done an excellent job in tying down the enemy and giving his homeland time to prepare for the inevitable invasion. He could do nothing more. For six more months, Yamashita held out.
On August 13, the shortwave radio from Tokyo carried the controversial Army speech urging Japanese soldiers to “crush the enemy.” Yamashita grimaced as he heard it; his men were dying of starvation before his eyes.
When the radio brought the word of the Emperor’s decision to surrender, the tired general retired to his hut and stared at the ceiling. Akira Muto, his chief of staff, watched him carefully to make sure that he would not commit suicide. Yamashita quickly allayed his fears by telling him that it was his duty to return all the soldiers in the Philippines to their homes in Japan. Then he went to bed.
On the second day of September, in bright, warm sunlight, a column of men walked away from the last headquarters of the Japanese Army in the Philippines. Yamashita was going to meet the enemy and he had no illusions about his future. His nation had lost a war and the conqueror would exact tribute. Behind him, Muto was filled with fear. He sensed that the Americans would hold Yamashita responsible for what had happened in Manila months before. Muto urged the general not to go into the enemy camp but to retreat further into the mountains and live as a guerrilla chieftain. Yamashita brushed his fears aside.
The procession continued down slopes wild with the beautiful lushness of a tropical summer. A tall, heavy-set man, Yamashita wore riding pants below his jacket. Puttees were wrapped about his legs. His clothes were badly wrinkled and sagged on his thin frame. On his head he wore a standard garrison cap. The general’s eyes were badly pouched, and he carried a heavy cane to support himself on the long walk. The column stopped frequently to eat and rest. Only the birds sounded above them in the stillness. For a brief time the awful war receded.
At Kiangan, several miles away from his final command post, Yamashita stopped in front of Item Company, Thirty-second United States Infantry Division, and entered into captivity. Within hours, he and his party were taken to Baguio and their first ordeal before the victors.
There, on September 3, in the former home of the High Commissioner to the Philippines, a long table was the focal point of a ceremony. In an ornate room, in finely carved chairs, American officers sat waiting. Across from them, Yamashita, Muto and Admiral Okochi stood stiffly for ten long minutes. Then the door opened and the Japanese watched as several more men entered the room. Yamashita’s right eyebrow rose perceptibly as he suddenly recognized a ghost from the past. It was General Percival, just flown in from Tokyo to witness the signing. Yamashita quickly recovered his composure and never again looked at the emaciated British officer. With Percival was Jonathan Wainwright, who watched closely as General William Styer accepted Yamashita’s capitulation in a formal manner.
Then the American general spoke sharply: “General Yamashita, Vice Admiral Okochi and the others shall be held as prisoners of war.”
A burly American MP poked a finger in Yamashita’s shoulder and pointed to the door. As the general turned to leave, Wainwright noticed tears in his eyes. Then the Japanese went through the door and into bondage.
After the ceremony, Wainwright went up to General Styer and asked that Yamashita be treated fairly. Styer looked at him and muttered: “He’ll be given everything he’s entitled to under the Geneva Convention. We don’t want to be accused of doing to him what they did to you.” Wainwright thanked him and walked away.
Yamashita was driven that day to the outskirts of Manila and the New Bilibid Prison. Within days he would be charged with 123 separate counts of war crimes and put on trial for his life. General Muto’s prediction had been correct.
Yamashita, the loser, was the first man to go on trial before his accusers. Some Americans later described his judges as a lynch mob seeking vengeance. Behind the walls of Bilidid, Yamashita, dressed in G.I. fatigues, sat down to prepare his defense. It was hopeless.
On the eighth of September, the First Cavalry Division led the way into Tokyo. Japanese General Gen Sugiyama had skillfully withdrawn all Japanese troops north of the capital in compliance with Eichelberger’s orders. Now MacArthur was on his way to the American Embassy to raise the flag over the heart of the Japanese Empire.
Admiral Bull Halsey was with him. He was not riding the Emperor’s white horse as he had threatened to do, but he was present in the procession, beside the Supreme Commander.
General William Chase rode at the head of his division, which had fought the Japanese for three years through jungles into the scorched and broken city of Manila. At the sign marking the city limits of Tokyo, Chase ordered his car stopped. He stepped down, walked across the line into the capital, then returned to his jeep for the uneventful trip to the ceremony at the Embassy.
His men were impeccably clad, their boots shining, their helmets gleaming. Mile after mile of trucks, guns and men moved into the center of Tokyo, into the last bastion of the Land of the Rising Sun. The Emperor’s own palace was virtually surrounded by legions of a foreign power.
In the grass courtyard of the white-walled Embassy, MacArthur enjoyed another dramatic moment in his illustrious career. Standing with Eichelberger and Halsey in front of a drained lily pond, he listened as “The Star-Spangled Banner” resounded off the walls of the compound. Fully conscious of the importance and irony of the moment, MacArthur turned to Eichelberger and said firmly: “Let our country’s flag be unfurled, and in Tokyo’s sun let it wave in its full glory as a symbol of hope for the oppressed and as a harbinger of victory for the right.”
Old Glory rose above the rubble of Tokyo.