Remembering the Greatest Generation! 78 Years ago, the Japanese surrender ending World War II took place aboard the USS Missouri.

NB: An earlier version of this article appeared on the AMSP1775 Website on September 20, 2020. Due to the "Historic" Flooding of Hurricane Ida, this article is a day late. For those of us who were blessed to be raised by parents who were members of the "Greatest Generation" -Victory over Japan or "VJ" Day was one of the most memorable days in their lives as it marked the conclusion of World War II.

Remembering the Greatest Generation! 78 Years ago, the Japanese surrender ending World War II took place aboard the USS Missouri.

78 years ago on this date, the surrender ceremony officially ending hostilities in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II took place aboard the USS Missouri, BB 63.

Here's a little back story around the surrender and the Missouri itself...

The?surrender was initially announced by Japanese Emperor Hirohito on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945.

By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. Together with the British Empire and China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945—the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction".?After initially rejecting the terms of the Potsdam declaration, the atomic bomb missions of August 6th over Hiroshima and August 9th over Nagasaki - finally convinced the Japanese of the futility of carrying on the fight.

While controversy still surrounds the bombings, it has been estimated that millions of Japanese and Allied lives were saved by avoiding the planned "Invasion of the Japanese Homeland!"

As a side note, when the author interviewed his father-in-law in 1995 - a member of the 5th Air Force, flying B-24 Liberator's - he shared that he and his colleagues did not believe the initial reports that a SINGLE plane carrying a SINGLE bomb had destroyed an entire city. Having spent the better part of two years flying multiple sorties dropping a payload of between 2700 and 5000 pounds at a time, he and his crew were sure the "secret weapon" talk was just that... talk.

Of course, the "secret weapon" was in fact real and the two bombs dropped from the Enola Gay and Bockscar respectively, did in fact destroy two entire cities.

The Navy originally wanted the USS South Dakota to be the surrender site. It was President Truman who changed the site to the USS Missouri as he was originally from Independence, Missouri. As insiders recalled later, when Truman was first informed that the surrender was scheduled to take place on the South Dakota, Truman (an Army Artillery Officer during World War I) supposedly said... "The South Dakota... what's wrong with 'my' boat!" Not only was it named for his home state, but his daughter Margaret had served as the ship's sponsor christening the ship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1944.

Why did the US choose a battleship as the location for the surrender in the first place? Pure symbolism. A naval vessel is considered sovereign territory for the purposes of accepting a surrender. Having to board your enemy’s massive battleship moored in the waters of your own capital city made the ultimate statement that the US had achieved complete military superiority over the Japanese.

The Japanese delegation had to travel across Tokyo Bay to the Missouri, which sat at the center of a huge US fleet of some 250 warships.?Interestingly, even in the midst of this massive display of military power there were security concerns. The Japanese ship transporting the delegation initially set out with its guns raised (some said in defiance). Via loudspeaker and a Japanese language interpreter, the ship was ordered to lower its guns. When at first the ship did not comply, fearing a "kamikaze" type incident, several US ships trained their guns on the smaller Japanese vessel. Shortly thereafter, the Japanese vessel did in fact lower its guns and sailed on without incident.

The Surrender Ceremony was carefully planned detailing the seating positions of all Army, Navy, and Allied Representatives.?Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser of the Royal Navy, the Commander of the British Pacific Fleet, boarded Missouri on 16 August and conferred the honor of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire upon Admiral Halsey. Missouri transferred a landing party of 200 officers and men to the battleship Iowa for temporary duty with the initial occupation force for Tokyo on 21 August. Missouri herself entered Tokyo Bay early on 29 August to prepare for the signing by Japan of the official instrument of surrender. High-ranking military officials of all the Allied Powers were received on board on 2 September, including Chinese general Hsu Yung-Ch'ang, British admiral of the Fleet Sir Bruce Fraser, Soviet lieutenant-general Kuzma Nikolaevich Derevyanko, Australian general Sir Thomas Blamey, Canadian Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave, French Général d'Armée Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, Dutch Vice Admiral Conrad Emil Lambert Helfrich, and New Zealand Air Vice Marshal Leonard Isitt.

Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz boarded shortly after 0800, and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allies, came on board at 0843. The Japanese representatives, headed by Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, arrived at 0856. Per the picture below, when the Japanese delegation came aboard, they were forced to use an accommodation way (stairs) situated just forward of turret #1. The freeboard (distance between the ship’s deck and the water line) there makes the climb about twice as long as if it had been set up farther aft, where the freeboard of the ship is less. NOTE WELL: This was even more of an issue for Foreign Affairs Minister Shigemitsu, as he had been crippled by an assassination attempt in 1932, losing his right leg in the process.

The #1 and #2 turrets had been traversed about 20 degrees to starboard. The ostensible reason for this was to get the turret overhangs out of the way to create more room for the ceremony on the starboard veranda deck, but in fact this would have only required traversing turret #2 had it been the real reason. However, the turret position also put the gun tubes directly over the heads of the Japanese. They were literally boarding the ship “under the gun”.

The honor guard of US sailors (side boys) were all hand-picked to be over six feet tall, a further intimidation of the shorter-statured Japanese.

At 0902, General MacArthur stepped before a battery of microphones and opened the 23-minute surrender ceremony to the waiting world by stating, "It is my earnest hope—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 fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance, and justice." The surrender documents themselves, one copy for the Allies and one for the Japanese contained identical English-language texts, but the Allied copy was bound in good quality leather, while the Japanese copy was bound with light canvas.

In addition to establishing the surrender site aboard the Missouri, the symbolism of the ceremony was even greater than that.?On Missouri that day was the American flag flown in 1853 on USS Powhatan by Commodore Matthew C. Perry on the first of his two expeditions to Japan. Per the picture above, Perry's flag can be seen in the upper right corner having been flown all the way from the Naval Academy for the ceremony. The flag had to be displayed under glass in a wooden case in the reverse position (stars to the right) as it was so fragile a silk backing had been applied.

The ship was also anchored at the precise latitude/longitude recorded in Perry’s log. Perry's expeditions had resulted in the Convention of Kanagawa, which opened the closeted Edo-era Japan to the world and forced upon them the Meiji restoration which ended the rule of the Samurai class and opened the country to American trade.?The symbolism here being that the purpose of both Perry's initial visit and the surrender ceremony "visit" was to "open" Japan yet again to the West.?

After the signing ceremony, the Japanese delegation was not invited for tea; they were escorted off the ship as an Allied air armada of over 400 aircraft flew overhead as a final reminder that American forces still had the ability to continue fighting should the Japanese have second thoughts on surrender.

After World War II, Missouri went on to fight in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. She was decommissioned in 1955 into the United States Navy reserve fleets (the "Mothball Fleet"), but reactivated and modernized in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan, and provided fire support during Operation Desert Storm in January/February 1991.

Missouri firing a full broadside of all nine of her 16 inch guns during Operation Desert Storm (1991).

After Operation Desert Storm ended, Missouri returned to be part of the United States Navy reserve fleet at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington, until 12 January 1995, when she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register. In 1998, the U.S. Navy wanted to pair a symbol of the end of World War II with one representing its beginning. On 4 May 1998, Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton signed the donation contract that transferred her to the nonprofit USS Missouri Memorial Association (MMA) of Honolulu, Hawaii. She was towed from Bremerton on 23 May then towed across the eastern Pacific, and docked at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor on 22 June, just 500 yd (460 m) from the Arizona Memorial. Less than a year later, on 29 January 1999, Missouri was opened as a museum operated by the MMA.

Originally, the decision to move Missouri to Pearl Harbor was met with some resistance. The National Park Service expressed concern that the battleship, whose name has become synonymous with the end of World War II, would overshadow the battleship Arizona, whose dramatic explosion and subsequent sinking on 7 December 1941 has since become synonymous with the attack on Pearl Harbor. To help guard against this impression Missouri was placed well back from and facing the Arizona Memorial, so that those participating in military ceremonies on Missouri's aft decks would not have sight of the Arizona Memorial. The decision to have Missouri's bow face the Arizona Memorial was intended to convey that Missouri watches over the remains of Arizona so that those interred within Arizona's hull may rest in peace.

Missouri overseeing the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, symbolizing the beginning and the end of World War II.

Missouri received a total of 11 battle stars for service in World War II, Korea, and the Persian Gulf, and was finally decommissioned on 31 March 1992 after serving a total of 17 years of active service.

Sources: https://www.nationalww2museum.org, Pearl Harbor Memorial - USS Battleship Missouri Memorialhttps://www.ussmissouri.org, United States Naval Institute https://www.usni.org

About the author - Paul McBride is a former Marine, and RVP at ZeOmega Population Health Management Software a leader in Care Management and Medicare Advantage software. He is also the Founder and President of American Military Society Press. You can contact him at [email protected]