AUGUST 19, 1945
Editorial
EIGHTEEN FATEFUL DAYS
The first eighteen days of August, 1945, can be set down as the most nerve-racking in modern history. Whether they are also the most auspicious depends on what we do with their results. So fast have events moved that the situation of three weeks ago seems like ancient history. First, on Aug. 2, we had the Potsdam communiqué, with its hopeful promise of the restoration of democracy and civil liberties in Europe and its practical economic and political proposals, not all of which could be accepted without reservations.
Second, on Aug. 6, we had the announcement of the first atomic bomb. One could accept this horrible weapon because it would shorten a bloody war and because the knowledge on which it was based might some day ease the burdens of all humanity. But the indiscriminate slaughter which it caused did not lie easily on American consciences, and the problem of its future control was, and is, appalling.
Third, on Aug. 8, Russia made her long-expected declaration of war and immediately moved into Manchuria. Her swift gains confirmed other evidences of Japanese weakness and the surrender offer of Aug. 10 was not a surprise. The surprise—and the nervous strain—lay in the arrogance, the defiant propaganda and the unaccountable delays which characterized the last days and hours of the Japanese Empire.
The jubilant and in some cities riotous celebrations of the coming of peace will cause Tuesday and Wednesday of last week to be long remembered. Less dramatic were the quiet people, probably all over the country, who came out to their front porches to breathe the air of peace again, or offered up prayers in their homes or in their churches, or felt in their hearts, as so many millions of wives and parents must have done, a thankfulness too deep for words. Not since the ending of the war of 1861–65 has this nation been through such a moving experience.
Yet there was evident, both in the noisy celebrations and in the quietness that followed. an element of apprehension as to the future. The goal toward which free humanity had been struggling for so long, at such terrible cost, had at last been attained, but with it there came a realization of the nature of victory in war. Victory is a negative thing at best. It merely ends the dangers and horrors of war. It does not give back the lives that were lost, or restore those that were broken, or reestablish the conditions that existed before war broke out. It does not, in itself, establish a lasting peace.
The morning after victory must, therefore, be sober indeed. New problems rise. In our own country we face immediately the tremendous task of turning our production from war to peace. No war worker could wish to keep his job at the expense of other people’s lives, yet he cannot help concern as to his personal future. Most soldiers, sailors and marines want their discharges at the earliest possible moment, but now they must ask themselves what are their opportunities in civilian life.
In the countries which have borne the brunt of battle, from Russia, France and the Balkans to China, the immediate outlook is worse. Security and prosperity are plants that grow very slowly amid the ruins. Liberty is sweet, but it is not food, clothing, fuel and shelter. It will in time produce them or all our hopes are vain, but the time is necessary and there are countless millions who will find it hard to wait.
Thus these days of new-born peace are also days of crisis. We have to see that relief goes swiftly to those who need it most, at home and abroad. We have to see that economic and political reconstruction is of such a sort as to perpetuate peace, in the light that glared over Hiroshima and Nagasaki we have to reconsider the obligations assumed under the United Nations Charter, and ask ourselves whether we have gone far enough in the new machinery for the amicable settlement of international disputes. Two atomic explosions have been sufficient to make peace more than a desirable objective. It is now a necessity to the survival of civilization.
Much of the burden of the new tasks imposed on humanity by these fateful days of August, 1945, rest upon the United States. We have become the most powerful nation in the world. Five years ago honest, if mistaken, Americans could talk of a policy of isolation. Now we are the center and focus of a new fear and a new hope. And a center cannot be isolated.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1945
Japanese Bitter In Defeat; Angered By Raids on Tokyo
By FRANK L. KLUCKHOHN
By Wireless to The New York Times.
TOKYO, Aug. 31—This nation in defeat is bitter. Everyone is “so sorry.” The Japanese did not lose the war. That nasty contraption, the atomic bomb, did the job. They want to know why we ripped Tokyo to pieces. They even want to take us on sightseeing trips to show us how unsportsmanlike we are.
If you ask why they attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, they are embarrassed. If you answer, “Manila is worse,” to their queries as to why Tokyo is so severely mauled you have attacked Oriental “face.”
I found that out after being one of the first correspondents into Yokohoma and after riding in a packed train into Tokyo.
Riding from Atsugi Airdrome into Yokohama, we saw peasants turn their backs to ignore us. We saw a soldier chase three women who wanted to look at us and force them to hide. We saw the destruction that had been visited on Yokohama, one of Japan’s major ports and chief industrial centers, and saw people living in corrugated tin huts as a substitute for homes. We watched curiosity almost overcome discipline as children grinned at us before dodging into doorways.
We saw a badly beaten people.
With Gordon Walker of the American Broadcasting Company I made the trip into the capital of a defeated empire on an ordinary commuter train. It was a trip not without strain, but as it turned out nothing unfortunate happened.
All during the drive into Yokohama from Atsugi Airdrome we were struck by the unfriendly, even hostile, attitude of the populace. As we entered Yokohama, we again received stony stares that made it evident that this nation is suffering deeply under the lash of defeat.
At the railway station we encountered two nuns—one English and one French—who had just arrived together from the capital. They told us they did not know whether it was safe for us to travel in a United States uniform there. But when we insisted they helped us buy rail tickets.
We went out on to a wooden platform like that at Rye, N.Y., and boarded an all-third-class train. Aboard our car were mostly Japanese soldiers being dropped by the army, in full or part uniform, and a few women wearing trousers and shirts, which have been the wartime dress of the women, who used to wear kimonos.
Scorched ruins of Tokyo, a result of massive Allied air raid attacks in 1945.
The hostility was thick. It gave a peculiar feeling to be among people we had fought so long. As the train halted at each of the five or six stations on the fifty-minute trip, we both became more and more tense. The coach became as crowded as a New York subway coach at a rush hour.
We tried to break the tension by asking what time the train would arrive. We obtained curt answers. The first soldier we approached even refused to speak to us.
FACTORY AREA LEVELED
We gazed through the window at the completely destroyed factory area between the port and the capital. Once one of the most densely populated areas of the world, it is now a conglomerate of corrugated tin huts where people live in worse conditions than the Oakies in California at the depth of the depression in the Nineteen Thirties. Then we looked back at hostile eyes. Mr. Walker and I tried to talk with each other but this seemed to annoy the Japanese so we gave it up.
Finally we stepped out at an undestroyed station and walked past a thousand glaring soldiers by a subway onto the street. We tried to hail several cabs but were ignored. Finally we walked into a bank, where we asked if anyone spoke English. We received more glares and were ignored. We walked about a block and then saw a man just entering a small car with a chauffeur. We requested, with as much an air of authority as we could muster, that he drive us to the Imperial Hotel. He acceded but refused to talk with us.
The “cold treatment” thereafter alternated d
uring the long day with complaints as to the way our bombers had acted.
Few we met failed to mention the complete destruction of the Yokohama-Tokyo industrial area by superfortresses. They wanted to know why we had bombed Tokyo and how we reconciled that with “civilization.”
They said that only Emperor Hirohito’s order had made them stop fighting and that if this had not been issued they could have resisted an invasion.
There were serious complaints over the fact that United States planes were still flying over the Imperial Palace—a practice characterized as a “direct insult” by those we met. We saw in the five-minute drive to the Imperial Hotel that many of Tokyo’s leading buildings were still standing, although we had observed that the factory and residential sections were largely destroyed. At the desk of the hotel we were greeted by an English-speaking Japanese, who said “How do you do, Mr. Kluckhohn?” as if there had never been a war. He pushed out the register, which I signed, and then he asked about Otto D. Tolischus, who was Tokyo correspondent of The New York Times at the outbreak of the war. The nuns in Yokohama had suggested that we ask for the Rev. Patrick Byrne of Washington, and we did so. He came down, shook hands delightedly and took us to his room, where he introduced us to a member of the secret police who had guarded him throughout the war.
Toshiyuki Myamoto, a reporter for the newspaper Asahi, was there and proceeded to try to interview us. He called the Asahi and within a few moments a photographer and a man whom we took to be of the secret police arrived. The unidentified arrival questioned us as, to the United States attitude toward Japan, why we had bombed Tokyo, what we thought of the effect of the bombing. We said it was “not so bad as Manila” as far as complete destruction went. He looked at us with pain and quickly left.
Although the Asahi man insisted that it was dangerous for us to be in the streets, we wandered through the park opposite the hotel. We again got cold glances.
SEPTEMBER 2, 1945
TOKYO AIDES WEEP AS GENERAL SIGNS
By The Associated Press
ABOARD U.S.S. MISSOURI in Tokyo Bay, Sept. 2—The solemn surrender ceremony, on this battleship today, marking the first defeat in Japan’s 2,600-year-old semi-legendary history, required only a few minutes as twelve signatures were affixed to the articles.
Surrounded by the might of the United States Navy and Army, and under the eyes of the American and British commanders they so ruthlessly defeated in the Philippines and Malaya, the Japanese representatives quietly made the marks on paper that ended the bloody Pacific conflict.
The Japanese delegation came aboard at 8:55 A.M., 7:55 P.M. Saturday, E.W.T., as scheduled. They reached the Missouri in personnel speed boats flying the American flag.
Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu led the delegation. He climbed stiffly up the ladder and limped forward on his right leg, which is artificial. He was wounded by a bomb tossed by a Korean terrorist in Shanghai many years ago.
On behalf of Emperor Hirohito, Mr. Shigemitsu signed first for Japan. He doffed his top hat, tinkered with the pen and then firmly affixed his signature to the surrender document, a paper about twelve by eighteen inches. Mr. Shigemitsu carefully signed the American copy first, then affixed his name to a duplicate copy to be retained by Japan.
Following him, Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu, chief of the Imperial General Staff sat down resolutely and scrawled his name on the documents as if in a tremendous hurry. A Japanese colonel present was seen to wipe tears from his eyes as the general signed. All the Japanese looked tense and weary. Mr. Shigemitsu looked on anxiously as General Umezu signed.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur was next to sign, as Supreme Commander for the Allies, on behalf of all the victorious Allied Powers. General MacArthur immediately called for Lieut. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright of Bataan and Coregidor and Lieut. Gen. Arthur E. Percival of Singapore to step forward. These two defeated Allied commanders, now savoring their hour of triumph, stepped up, and General Wainwright helped General MacArthur to take his seat.
General MacArthur signed the documents with five pens. The first he handed immediately to General Wainwright, the second to General Percival. The third was an ordinary shipboard Navy issue pen.
General MacArthur then produced a fourth pen, presumably to be sent to President Truman. Then he completed his signatures with still a fifth, possibly a trophy to be retained by himself.
Generals Wainright and Percival, both obviously happy, saluted snappily. They were followed by serene-faced Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who signed on behalf of the United States. Next came China’s representative.
General MacArthur acted as a brisk master of ceremonies. He made a brief introductory statement before the Japanese signed, then called upon each nation’s signer in turn to step forward. The United Kingdom’s signature was followed by that of the Soviet Union.
The Russian staff officer signed quickly, scooting his chair into a more comfortable position even as he was signing. General MacArthur smiled approvingly as the Russian rose and saluted. Quickly in turn, Australian, Canadian, French, Netherlands and New Zealand representatives signed in that order. The Australian, Gen. Sir Thomas Blamey, happened to sign the Japanese copy first, with an expression that denoted that it did not make any difference.
Finally, after New Zealand’s signature, less than twenty minutes from the start of the ceremony, General Mac Arthur formally and in a firm voice declared the proceedings closed.
The Japanese prepared to depart immediately, their bitter chore accomplished.
The historic signing took place on a long table on the gallery deck. All Allied representatives were sober-faced, but obviously glad it was over. Soldiers, sailors and marines, some of whom had fought their way across the Pacific, hardly could hide a trace of exuberance on their serious faces.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mamoru Shigemitsu signing the surrender of Japan aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. General Douglas MacArthur is at the microphone.
SEPTEMBER 2, 1945
AMERICANS ENTERING JAPAN SEE ENTIRELY ALIEN LAND
Here Are Some Characteristic Features of the Enemy Homeland
By HENRY C. WOLFE
American occupation forces in Japan are seeing a land and a people very different from what the movies and popular fiction have led them to expect. They probably feel let down. Here is what they are finding:
Country and Climate—All four of Japan’s main islands together have an area smaller than the State of California. Nippon (Honshu), is the main island, with almost twice the area of the other three. Much of the land is mountainous. Only one-eighth is arable. Earthquakes are commonplace. The islands have a temperate climate, with rather extreme variations. Kyushu and Shikoku have mild winters. On the east coast of Honshu the winters are apt to be mild, but on its west coast there is deep snow and bitter cold. Hokkaido, the northern island, has a cold and inhospitable winter climate. On the whole, Japan has short, hot, humid summers and long, cold, clear winters.
Population—Japan’s 75,000,000 people are largely concentrated in the coastal areas, the Tokyo-Yokohama region, the Kobe-Osaka-Kyoto district, Nagoya and Nagasaki. About half of the Mikado’s subjects live in villages or on individual farms. There are, however, large tracts, especially in western Honshu and in Hokkaido, where there are no people at all, for the terrain is mountainous or the winters extremely cold.
Natural resources—One of the principal reasons for Japan’s drive to the South Seas was to obtain raw materials in which she was deficient. There are some natural resources in Nippon—coal, petroleum, sulphur, salt, iron, copper, lead, zinc, chromite, white arsenic, gold and silver. A few years ago Japan was almost self-sufficient in copper. With the rise of war industries, however, the exports required to pay for raw materials imports and the heavy drain of the long conflict in China made copper importation essential. In terms of yen value, gold was the second most valuable metal produced in Japan before the war. Japan is fairly well situated so far as coal is conc
erned, but she must import coking coal and anthracite.
RULERS OF JAPAN
Government—The Japanese Government has been representative only in theory. Actually it is an oligarchy. At the head is the Emperor, at least in name. Below him is the Imperial Diet, consisting of the House of Representatives and the House of Peers. But somewhere between the Emperor and the Diet come the Imperial Household Ministry, the Privy Council, the Genro (Elder Statesmen), the Prime Minister and the army and navy chiefs. This has made the real source of Japan’s governing power a kind of political shell game for foreigners.
Autocrats—Japan’s two greatest business houses are the Mitsui and the Mitsubishi interests. Their commercial ramifications were worldwide and brought vast wealth and power to their concerns. The house of Mitsui, for example, owns or controls banks, department stores, shipping, factories, international trading offices, newspapers and pulp paper companies. Because the little people had virtually no purchasing power in the Western sense, the Mitsuis and the Mitsubishis were dependent for profits on international trade.
LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES
Language—Spoken Japanese will not prove an insuperable difficulty, but it is to be doubted that many of our men will get far with the written language. Japanese words are not hard to pronounce. Moreover, they are rather easy to understand, with their generous use of vowels. But the written language, a language of ideographs, is extremely difficult. In the great coastal cities, especially the Tokyo-Yokohama area, Osaka and Kobe, many Japanese speak, or at any rate read, some English. English is the most widely understood foreign language in Japan; it is the great commercial speech of the Far East. Nearly all Japanese engaged in international trade understand it.
The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945 Page 148