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Authors: Jr. Seymour Morris
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document, they could well be waylaid and killed on the spot. All the other men in the cars knew this, fearing, too, for their own lives. So when they finally arrived at 7:00 a.m. in Yokohama and saw the heavily armed soldiers of General Eichelbergerâs Eighth Army, they were much relieved. They had made it.
After an hourâs wait the cars were instructed to follow a jeep and proceed down streets guarded by American sentries, now armed with rifles and bayonets. By now the Japanese officials were extremely nervous. They were not aware that most of the American soldiers bore little vengeance, that only the day before three American infantrymen patrolling the streets had stumbled on a woman knocked down by a streetcar, jumped out of their jeep, rushed to her aid, and taken her to a hospital. Japanese bystanders were amazed. Equally amazed were the Japanese kids whenever the GIs flashed a smile and tossed them pieces of gum and candy. This was not the rapine and pillage they had been told to expect.
At the dockside were four destroyers marked A, B, C, and D. The Japanese flags were removed from the cars, and the military members of the delegation were ordered to leave their samurai swords behind. They boarded destroyer B, the Lansdowne , and proceeded fourteen miles out into Tokyo Bay where they met what Kase would describe as âa majestic arrayâ of gray warships, âthe mighty pageant of the Allied navies that so lately went forth into battle, now holding back their swift thunder and floating like calm seabirds on the waters.â No fewer than 260 ships were in the harbor, almost all American: aircraft carriers, destroyers, battleships, cruisers, and minesweepers.
Equally gray was the sky. It was overcast, the sun nowhere to be seen, but at least it wasnât raining. Protected by the flotilla of many ships, and planes circling overhead, sat the Missouri . Destroyer B slowed to a stop so a motor launch could take on the Japanese and deliver them to their assigned places. Coming on board to greet them was Colonel Mashbir, MacArthurâs chief translator. The Japanese delegates were very anxious; they had no idea how they should present themselves when they got up to the deck and met their victors. Should they salute, bow, or shake hands? Should they smile? Mashbir said the military members of the group should salute, the others should take off their hats and bow. There was to be no handshaking; this was not a meeting of equals but a formal occasion: âI suggest that all of you wear a shivan kao [neutral face].â
There was a problem. The head delegate for the Japanese government, Mamoru Shigemitsu, had a wooden leg, so he could not handle the stairs leading from the ship down to the launch bobbing in the water. The captain of the Lansdowne quickly rigged up a bosunâs chair to let the man over the side. Foreign Minister Katsuo Okazaki asked Mashbir if he would kindly prevent the photographers from taking pictures of Shigemitsu âin this particularly undignified position.â Mashbir turned to the photographers and asked them to put down their cameras, out of respect. They did so.
One of the Japanese delegates, Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu, made a deliberate point of not helping Shigemitsu walk. But an American gunnery officer, Horace Birdâknowing it was not right that the man be unnecessarily humiliatedârushed forward and offered the struggling diplomat his assistance.
Now in the launch, the eleven Japaneseââdiplomats without flag and soldiers without swordââstared in awe at the ship towering twenty stories above them. At the top fluttered the Stars and Stripes, claimed by many to have been the same flag that had flown over the White House the day of Pearl Harbor and been hoisted over Rome in 1943 and Berlin in 1945 (not true, it turned out, but it made a good story).
The guns were awesome. The Japanese men looking up could only feel the horror of war, whose
After an hourâs wait the cars were instructed to follow a jeep and proceed down streets guarded by American sentries, now armed with rifles and bayonets. By now the Japanese officials were extremely nervous. They were not aware that most of the American soldiers bore little vengeance, that only the day before three American infantrymen patrolling the streets had stumbled on a woman knocked down by a streetcar, jumped out of their jeep, rushed to her aid, and taken her to a hospital. Japanese bystanders were amazed. Equally amazed were the Japanese kids whenever the GIs flashed a smile and tossed them pieces of gum and candy. This was not the rapine and pillage they had been told to expect.
At the dockside were four destroyers marked A, B, C, and D. The Japanese flags were removed from the cars, and the military members of the delegation were ordered to leave their samurai swords behind. They boarded destroyer B, the Lansdowne , and proceeded fourteen miles out into Tokyo Bay where they met what Kase would describe as âa majestic arrayâ of gray warships, âthe mighty pageant of the Allied navies that so lately went forth into battle, now holding back their swift thunder and floating like calm seabirds on the waters.â No fewer than 260 ships were in the harbor, almost all American: aircraft carriers, destroyers, battleships, cruisers, and minesweepers.
Equally gray was the sky. It was overcast, the sun nowhere to be seen, but at least it wasnât raining. Protected by the flotilla of many ships, and planes circling overhead, sat the Missouri . Destroyer B slowed to a stop so a motor launch could take on the Japanese and deliver them to their assigned places. Coming on board to greet them was Colonel Mashbir, MacArthurâs chief translator. The Japanese delegates were very anxious; they had no idea how they should present themselves when they got up to the deck and met their victors. Should they salute, bow, or shake hands? Should they smile? Mashbir said the military members of the group should salute, the others should take off their hats and bow. There was to be no handshaking; this was not a meeting of equals but a formal occasion: âI suggest that all of you wear a shivan kao [neutral face].â
There was a problem. The head delegate for the Japanese government, Mamoru Shigemitsu, had a wooden leg, so he could not handle the stairs leading from the ship down to the launch bobbing in the water. The captain of the Lansdowne quickly rigged up a bosunâs chair to let the man over the side. Foreign Minister Katsuo Okazaki asked Mashbir if he would kindly prevent the photographers from taking pictures of Shigemitsu âin this particularly undignified position.â Mashbir turned to the photographers and asked them to put down their cameras, out of respect. They did so.
One of the Japanese delegates, Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu, made a deliberate point of not helping Shigemitsu walk. But an American gunnery officer, Horace Birdâknowing it was not right that the man be unnecessarily humiliatedârushed forward and offered the struggling diplomat his assistance.
Now in the launch, the eleven Japaneseââdiplomats without flag and soldiers without swordââstared in awe at the ship towering twenty stories above them. At the top fluttered the Stars and Stripes, claimed by many to have been the same flag that had flown over the White House the day of Pearl Harbor and been hoisted over Rome in 1943 and Berlin in 1945 (not true, it turned out, but it made a good story).
The guns were awesome. The Japanese men looking up could only feel the horror of war, whose
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