Dr. Jerry Sanson
Louisiana Maneuvers and Military Museum
An American propaganda poster from World War II featured an image of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto and a quote attributed to him: “I am looking forward to dictating peace to the United States in the White House at Washington.” The Instrument of Surrender that ended the biggest conflict in human history was not dictated by the Japanese military, nor was the ceremony conducted in the White House. Instead, representatives of the Allied Powers met with Japanese government and military representatives to conclude fighting on an American warship anchored half a world away in Tokyo Bay with a document that specified terms reflecting Allied designs for a peaceful settlement.
It became apparent by mid-1945 that Japan was close to following its Nazi ally Germany into a physical condition in which it could no longer carry on its war against the Allied Powers. Allied troops followed the island-hopping campaign implemented by their commanders in the Pacific Theater and drove Japanese forces out of many of the areas the country claimed as part of its new empire and drew ever closer to the Japanese home islands. Allied bombing and naval battles destroyed key components of the Japanese Navy. Atomic weapons practically destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Soviet Union, eager to be included in the peace settlement, declared war on Japan soon after the first atomic weapon dropped on Hiroshima and quickly sent troops to occupy portions of Manchuria on the Chinese mainland that Japan claimed since the early 1930s.
Japanese Emperor Hirohito decided in the midst of the country’s collapsing fortune that the Land of the Rising Sun had only one option left—surrender to the victorious Allied powers. He delivered the “Jewel-Voice Broadcast” on 15 August, announcing to the Japanese people and military his decision that the country would seek peace with its adversaries, the first time they had heard his voice.
Hirohito’s decision led to scrambling in the United States War Department as staff finalized an official Instrument of Surrender containing eight short paragraphs approved by President Harry Truman.
The morning set for the official surrender ceremony, Sunday, 2 September 1945, eighty years ago this month, was calm and overcast as the USS Missouri, chosen as the site of the ceremony because of its participation in Pacific Theater battles after its completion in 1944 and because it bore the name of President Truman’s home state, lay at anchor in Tokyo Bay surrounded by about 250 other Allied vessels in a show of remaining Allied military power.
The crowd of officers and sailors aboard the Missouri stood silent and attentive as the Japanese delegation led by Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu arrived at 8:56 A.M. in formal attire to perform their task of surrender. The crowd listened as American General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers and master of ceremonies for the occasion, delivered a brief speech outlining the purpose of the ceremony. We are here, he said in his opening remarks, to conclude “the most tragic war in history,” and to build a “better world out of the blood and carnage of the past.”
Foreign Minister Shigemitsu signed his name “By command and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Government” to two copies of the Instrument of Surrender (one for the Allies, one for Japan) at 9:02 A.M. General Umezu followed him and signed his name to the document “By Command and in behalf of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters.” General MacArthur then signed “for the United States, Republic of China, United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and in the interests of the other United Nations at war with Japan.” The time was recorded as 9:04.
Individual Allied representatives added their signatures signifying that each of their countries agreed with the terms of surrender. That list included C. W. Nimitz, United States; Hsu Yung-Ch’ang, Republic of China; Bruce Fraser, United Kingdom; Kuzma Derevyanko, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Thomas Blamey, Commonwealth of Australia; L. Moore Cosgrave, Dominion of Canada; Jacques Le Clerc, Provisional Government of the French Republic; C. E. L. Helfrich, Kingdom of the Netherlands; and Leonard M. Isitt, Dominion of New Zealand. The entire ceremony ending the biggest war that cost more lives than any other in history was timed at twenty-three minutes.
Colonel Bernard Thielen brought the surrender document back to Washington on 6 September and delivered it to President Truman in a formal ceremony at the White House on 7 September. General Jonathan Wainwright opened an exhibit at the National Archives during which the public could view the Instrument of Surrender until 1 October 1945, when it was placed in the Records of the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff; Record Group 218 in the National Archives.
President Truman looked forward hopefully to the better future that the end of warfare made possible for the United States and the world when he delivered his speech acknowledging the end of the conflict. “From this day we move forward. We move toward a new era of security at home,” he said. “With the other United Nations, we move toward a new and better world of cooperation, of peace and international good-will. God’s help has brought us to this day of victory. With His help we will attain that peace and prosperity for ourselves and all the world in the years ahead.”
Even though many questions and hardships remained for post-war officials to solve, World War II was officially over.
