The Japanese surrender

The Allies’ reply to the Japanese offer of August 10, 1945, agreed to respect the sovereign status of the Japanese emperor on condition that he should be subject to the directives of the supreme commander of the Allied Powers. On August 14 the Japanese in their turn agreed to this proviso. President Truman then announced Japan’s readiness to surrender, and elaborate plans were made to bring the war to an end.

Emperor Hirohito issued a proclamation to the Japanese people that they should accept the decision to surrender, and every effort was made to persuade them to accept the defeat that they had come to regard as unthinkable. Princes of the Imperial house were dispatched to distant Japanese Army forces in China and Korea to carry the emperor’s message. A small group of diehard opponents of surrender attempted to assassinate Premier Danshaku Suzuki Kantarō, and other government leaders. It was feared for a time that some fanatical Japanese airmen might launch suicide attacks on the Allied occupation forces, but no such incidents occurred. In retrospect, it appears that the interval between August 14 and September 2, when the formal surrender ceremonies took place, was essential to enable the Japanese government to prepare the way for a peaceful surrender.

Truman designated MacArthur as supreme commander of the Allied Powers to accept the Japanese surrender and to command the troops who were to occupy Japan. Japanese emissaries flew to Manila to confer with U.S. authorities about the procedures to be followed. The formal surrender took place on the deck of the U.S. battleship Missouri, flagship of the Pacific Fleet, anchored in Tokyo Bay. During the last days of August, Allied troops had landed at the forts guarding the bay and at Yokosuka naval base. The Missouri flew from its foremast the flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. The Royal Navy was represented by HMS Duke of York, flying the flag of Adm. Sir Bruce Fraser. More than 250 ships representing all the Allied powers were anchored in the bay.

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The ceremonies began at about 9:00 am on September 2, 1945. The nine members of the Japanese delegation, led by the foreign minister, Shigemitsu Mamoru, were brought to the Missouri from Yokohama in a U.S. destroyer. They stood facing the Allied commanders with two copies of the surrender document on a small table before them. As he opened the ceremony, MacArthur was accompanied by Nimitz and Halsey, and at his side were Lieut. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright and Lieut. Gen. Sir Arthur E. Percival, both of whom had recently been rescued from Japanese prison camps. After a few preliminary remarks, MacArthur invited the Japanese representatives to sign the instrument of surrender, which included the clear statement: “We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under Japanese control wherever situated.” Shigemitsu signed first, on behalf of the emperor and the Japanese government, followed by Gen. Umezu Yoshijiro, on behalf of the Imperial General Headquarters. The document was then also signed by MacArthur, Nimitz, and representatives of Great Britain, the U.S.S.R., China, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. After a 30-minute ceremony, hundreds of Allied warplanes from nearby carriers and land bases flew over Tokyo and additional ground troops were landed from the ships in Tokyo Bay.

For purposes of carrying out the surrender of Japanese troops in Korea, the United States and the U.S.S.R. agreed to a demarcation line along the 38th parallel. It was a fateful decision that led to the division of the country into a communist North Korea and a democratic South Korea.

Casualties and the material cost of the Pacific War

The human cost of the Pacific War was enormous. Some 2,000,000 Japanese—including nearly 700,000 civilians—were killed as a result of military action, and hundreds of thousands more succumbed to disease or starvation. Of the Allied forces, the U.S. suffered the greatest losses, with more than 100,000 killed in action. Nearly 6,000 American civilians were killed in action, the overwhelming majority of whom were members of the merchant marine. Some 27,000 Filipino troops were killed in combat against the Japanese, while more than three times that many civilians were lost. Total Australian casualties topped 45,000, with some 17,500 of those killed. New Zealand suffered nearly 12,000 fatalities; as a ratio of total population, this was the highest casualty rate among Commonwealth nations. Some 2,600 Dutch soldiers and sailors were killed in combat, while more than three times that many died in Japanese captivity; nearly 17,000 Dutch civilians died while prisoners of war.

The Philippines suffered from three years of Japanese occupation and exploitation, and from the destruction wrought in the reconquest of the islands by the Americans in 1944–45. The harbour at Manila was wrecked by the retreating Japanese, and many portions of the city were demolished by bombardment.

In Japan, the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey found the damage to urban centres comparable to that in Germany. In total, some 40 percent of the built-up areas of 66 Japanese cities was destroyed, and approximately 30 percent of the entire urban population of Japan lost their homes and many of their possessions. Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered the peculiar and lasting damage done by atomic explosion and radiation. Japan also lost about 80 percent of its merchant marine in the war in the Pacific.

The military relief effort in the Far East did not assume the proportions it did in Europe, since no western Allied armies entered China. Small quantities of relief supplies were shipped to the Philippines and the Dutch Indies under military auspices, but these programs were soon transferred to civilian control. There was no Asian equivalent of the Marshall Plan.