Occupying Japan 1945 - The First Uncertain Days of Peace

I spent about 3 months in Kobe, Japan, in 1984, installing a major piece of medical equipment in a hospital there. One night my two Japanese co-workers (both became very good friends) and I were walking down a very quiet side street in town, well after dark. A single kinono-ed figure very slowly walked up to us, and eventually turned out to be an old, old man. He ignored my two companions and walked up to me and started talking to me. Talking to me in the most beautiful, text book American English I have ever heard. It blew all three of us away. The old gentleman was definitely a Japanese national, no doubt about that. Both of my buddies tried speaking to him in Japanese and he violently shook his head, wanting nothing to do with his own native language (!). He wanted to speak English and talk to an American, period. I don't even remember what we discussed, the whole thing blew me away. So help me, I was ashamed talking to him as his American English was better than mine! It eventually turned out that he had been an interpreter on MacArthur's staff after the War and was then living in quiet retirement. He enjoyed using his adopted second language and searched out Americans whenever he could find them to talk to. Was an awesome night.........

7:29 “Okay cameras are watching, don’t trip, don’t trip, just act cool, people will be watching this timeless video for decades to come” Damnit!

Imagine being the guy that trips and faceplants into ocean on the landing on an undefended beach...

Meanwhile on History Channel: Watch the epic struggle of chopping down trees..

MacArthur when he arrived at Tokyo in 1945: The Americans were quartered at the New Grand Hotel, a luxury establishment erected after the earthquake of 1923. At dinner Whitney warned his chief that the steak might be poisoned, but MacArthur laughed and brushed it off with “No one can live forever.” Later that evening he told his staff, which had congregated in his room, “Boys, this is the greatest adventure in military history. Here we sit in the enemy’s country with only a handful of troops, looking down the throats of nineteen fully armed divisions and seventy million fanatics. One false move and the Alamo would look like a Sunday-school picnic!”

My father was there. He told me, many years later, that the common courtesy of the GI's to the women wasn't normal in their society...men giving up their seats on a bus, for example. THIS went a very, very long way to calming down tensions. Also..MacArthur saying that rape would result in the death sentence didn't hurt, either.

The grinning German getting the "200,000th prisoner of war captured by the U.S. Army" award cracked me up.

7:29 imagine watching your former self trip in such a historical moment. Damn it, Carl.

My dad was a US military liason officer in Japan during the 70s and he struck up a close friendship with a Japanese engineer, early disciple of Deming, who was a 1945 graduate of Enoshima (Japanese Naval Academy). He indicated this was a very troubled and confusing time. He and a group of his classmates were told they were headed to flight school to become Kamikaze, but no planes or flight school commenced, then they were assigned to a group that was supposed to drive explosive-rigged boats at invading US ships, but no boats or explosives arrived, then they were told they were to be deployed as infantry, equally suicidal. At the announcement of the end of the war, he and a number of his classmen went up to the top of a mountain where many ended up committing suicide. My dad's friend was one of a few who didn't and carried guilt about it to the end of his life. He turned out to be a great friend and hardworking artist who provided numerous paintings as gifts to my family, something I still have although he and my dad are gone.

Japan thought it was the end of the world when the US conquered them. Just imagine what their fate would be had Russia been their conquerer!

Arriving in Japan just after war has ended and with many Japanese very unhappy about it and an abundance of weaponry still available. That has got to be a buttock clenching moment.

There was incident when a transport pilot got lost coming into Japan & landed at the wrong airfield only to find when landed that there was a battalion of imperial Japanese troops sat on the tarmac fully armed & very anxious seeing a US plane land in front of them! After a few tense moment's a Japanese officer knocked on the side of the plane offering their surrender with his pistol & sword which the pilot declined until a higher ranking US official arranged hours later to accept. Apparently it was a very touch & go situation as the order for surrender was still in question amongst the Japanese troops.

Hirohito: "Surrenders" Suicide rate increased to 20%

If you ever feel bad about fucking something up, remember: the representative who signed the Japanese instrument of surrender on behalf of Canada signed on the wrong line on the Japanese copy, forcing every country after Canada to have their names crossed out and rewritten on the spot. The Japanese delegation was, apparently, not amused by this.

Very cool. I had a High School biology teacher who witnessed the ceremony on the Missouri and was part of the occupation force. His work there included dealing with Japanese war criminals. The stories he told in class were tales of the Greatest Generation. Mr. Blair passed some years ago, but he is remembered.

All that occupying without everyone getting killed is surprisingly heartening in retrospect.

My dad was actually an Army photographer at the Tokyo War Crimes trials starting in 1947 when he arrived after basic. (He missed his first assignment to photograph damage at Hiroshima as his troop ship arrived late.) I grew up with a shoebox of portraits of Tojo and others, which the Army had let him keep, in addition to the candids and scenery he’d taken with one of the few cameras left or imported in the country from before the war. His pictures are in the digital archive at Princeton University’s East Asian studies library now and can be viewed online. Mr Felton I’m sure many of us would be interested in another video on the daily business and difficulties of the Army of Occupation as 1945 turned in to and toward the later 1940s. Thank you.

In 1968, I asked my 8th Grade history teacher, Mr. Oliver, if he was in WWII. He said yes, and never saw action since he went into the military between VE and VJ Day. Said he was part of the occupation force, learned a great deal about Japan, and liked his time there.

My uncle Frank was General Mccarthers personal photographer. He is the one who took the pictures of the Japanese surrender onboard the U.S.S. Missouri. In fact, he was hired as a consultant when they filmed the movie MCCARTHER. He showed the cameramen where he took the pictures from.

Amazing that the Japanese were so dedicated to their emperors supreme command that even though they had a fanatical anti-surrender policy, they still went ahead and did so.