September 2, 1945, the Japanese sign an act of unconditional surrender in front of 50 Allied generals, led by Supreme Commander of Allied powers US General Douglas MacArthur, on the desk of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Within half an hour of the signing of the treaty US troop’s land, for the first time since the war with Japan began, on Japanese soil. General MacArthur spoke of compliance, not only in terms of the surrender of Japanese forces and compliance with the cease fire, but also referrer under no uncertain terms the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima an Nagasaki, that now the world needs to revises its perceptions of traditional war, for this was the only and last chance before Armageddon.
Supreme Command General MacArthur Speeks "Preserve in peace, what we won in war!"
"It is my earnest hope and, indeed, the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past; a world founded upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfilment of his most cherished wish, for freedom, tolerance and justice."
Japan in its defeat has agreed to comply with the terms of the Potsdam declaration which not only confined its sovereignty to the four main islands of Japan, but released all prisoners of war and end all hostilities. Marshal Joseph Stalin’s Russia regained the Kurile Islands, occupied by Japan since the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, which saw the first ever defeat of a European country by a foreign military power.
September 2nd, and August 15th are both known as days of victories. The German surrender V-E day, and the Japanese surrender V-J day. Japan has entered the war with a bang, but its luck ended when it attacked Pearl Harbor. Until that point, Japan had taken Hong Kong, Burma, the Philippines, Malaya and Borneo. Soon after the United States entered the war, the Japanese suffered decisive defeats at Midway and the Guadalcanal. Although the Japanese has asked the Russians to represent them at Potsdam, the Russians had already been preparing to break their pact of non-aggression, and on August 6th 1945 the US dropped the first of two atomic bombs on Japan. With the declaration of war by the Russians on Japan ending the Russo-Japanese non-aggression pact, the Japanese were forced to surrender unconditionally. The Emperor Hirohito offered to by tried for war crimes, but instead the US used him to push through democratic political reforms that transformed Japan, and kept it from coming under Communist influence.
By the end of World War Two, Japan has been at a state of war for almost 14 years, a fact that lingered for some soldiers long after the Emperor Hirohito first broadcast to the Japanese people on the 15th of August 1945 asking his subjects to ‘endure the unendurable and bear the unbearable'. Fighting continues for some Japanese soldiers caught in no mans land, either in China, Guadalcanal and parts of the Philippines. One such officer Lieutenant Onoda continued to fight until 1974, 29 years after the cease fire, until he received formal written orders to surrender. Some who fought on feared giving themselves up, too frightened at what may happen to them.
The USS Missouri was the last of the super battleships to be built near the end of the war in the Pacific. It fought in three wars, World War Two, the Korean War and the Gulf War, before being decommissioned for the last time. At nearly 53,000 tons, the Missouri carried a crew of 1,600 and weapons that fired 1 ton projectiles 23 miles away with enough accuracy to hit a tank. ON May 24, 1998 at 3:55 pm (PST), the last mooring lines were cast as it left for its final resting place, from Bremerton Washington to Honolulu. Welcomed to Hawaii on Father’s day, the Iowa Class Battleship, USS Missouri would find its resting place in Pearl Harbor, and join the two existing museums the USS Arizona and the USS Bowfin and be located between them.
