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Chi Battalion
Page 2 College Station, Texas Thursday, September 1, 1966
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WW II Treaty Signed
Rising Sun Set
21 Years
By TOMMY DeFRANK
The weather was appropriate for the death
of an empire.
Tokyo had been drenched by heavy rains most
of the night, and the Japanese morn dawned gray
and ominous.
It was September 2, 1945.
Stateside it was still September 1 — six years
to the day since Adolf Hitler’s legions poured into
a helpless Poland, signaling the start of the blood-
ist and costliest global conflict ever waged.
The Empire of Japan, two proud cities seared
by atomic blasts, her wartime economy wrecked
and crumbling after relentless daylight bombing
raids, was finally calling it quits.
THE JAPANESE HAD agreed to surrender
terms and begun demilitarization August 14, but
the United States and Japan were still officially
at war even as American warships lay anchored in
Tokyo Bay.
Elements of the U. S. 8th Army and 11th Air
borne Division were poised at the outskirts of the
Japanese capital, impatiently awaiting orders to
occupy the city.
Adm. William Halsey’s 3rd Fleet backed up the
ground forces, and additional ships were steaming
toward Tokyo daily.
General officers and representatives from the
Allied nations were also pouring in for signing of the
surrender document, scheduled for September 2
aboard Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz’ flagship, the
battleship Missouri.
But even while final preparations for the sur
render were being completed in Tokyo, a C-54 was
fighting the clock 1400 miles away.
AS THE PLANE passed over Japanese-held
Hong Kong, three Zeroes scrambled off a runway
below.
“That really shook us up,” recalls Col. John S.
Fenton Jr., “but the fighters made no attempt to
intercept.”
Fenton was navigator on the C-54 that trans
ported Gen. Hsu Yung-chang, official Chinese dele
gate to the surrender ceremonies. .
He was attached to ‘^."special mission outfit
the 1304th Army Air Force headquartered at Cal
cutta. His squadron, which transported VIPs when
ever the need arose, flew to Chungking to pick up
Gen. Yung-chang’s party, then proceeded to Tokyo
via Manila and Iwo Jima, arriving only hours be
fore surrender ceremonies were to begun.
Col. Fenton, who received an ornate Chinese
vase from the general for his part in the flight,
remembers that the return trip was uneventful.
BUT WHEN THE PLANE landed at Shanghai,
still in Japanese hands, the nervous crew and pass
engers were greeted by a Japanese major in full
battle dress.
“He had been graduated from the University of
Southern California before the war and spoke per
fect English,” Fenton said, “and he seemed more
interested in the football team that Southern Cal
could field that autumn than in the fact that the
war was over.”
Fenton’s crew, which also flew British Adm.
Lord Louis Mountbatten to the Japanese surrender
at Singapore September 6, had passed over the re
mains of Hiroshima enroute to Tokyo with the
Chinese.
“I’d seen lots of bombed out places,” he said,
“but never anything so completely obliterated by
one bomb as Hiroshima.”
As the C-54 passed over Hiroshima Fenton re
members becoming uneasy over the chance of a
possible incident by some never-say-die Japanese.
“We really just couldn’t believe the war was
over,” he explains today.
SERGEANT. ALAN CANTRELL had the same
idea as he stood guard in front of Yokohama’s
Grand Hotel. He had seen a fanatical young Jap
blow himself to bits a few days earlier to protest
Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur’s presence in
the city, and Cantrell still feared an attempt would
be made on the Supreme Allied Commander’s life.
First sergeant of a crack company from the 11th
Airborne Division chosen to serve as MacArthur’s
bodyguard, Cantrell had already sweated through one
close call.
A trailer truck had lumbered onto the main run
way at Atsugi Airfield and stopped, square in the
path of MacArthur’s approach, scant minutes before
the general was to land.
“We were prepared to shoot the whole lot of
them, but we found out just in time the truck had
run out of gas,” he recalls.
A guard unit pushed the stranded truck off the
runway and MacArthur arrived without incident.
He was escorted by truck convoy to Yokohama,
where he maintained his headquarters until the sur
render document was signed.
“MacARTHUR WAS always very brief but very
courteous, and many times he would chat with the
men and thank us for taking such good care of him,”
says Cantrell. “He never showed outward signs
of anything except complete confidence, and he
never appeared to worry over his personal safety.”
The bodyguard company accompanied MacArthur
to the Missouri for the surrender, but remained
aboard the destroyer Buchanan while the ceremon
ies were being conducted. Afterwards they escorted
him back to Tokyo, where he established occupational
headquarters.
The dynamic personality of the late MacArthur
remains vivid to Cantrell, who was to see the gen
eral again during the Korean War.
“He was most definitely the commander-in-chief
at all times, and that made our job much easier.
The Orientals recognized firm, ironfisted rule, and
MacArthur certainly provided that.”
While the guard detail was fidgeting aboard the
Buchanan, the Navy was also having its problems
aboard the Missouri.
CAPT. STUART S. MURRAY, skipper of the
Mighty Mb, feared the diehard Japanese might at
tempt a final belligerent gesture.
“We did not know whether that time might
be chosen for a final kamikaze or other sneak at
tack, so the Missouri’s antiaircraft batteries were
fully manned and ready for immediate action,”
Murray recalls today.
The captain, Navy Inspector General before re
tiring as a full admiral 11 years ago, was also hav
ing difficulties with the press. Newsmen drew lots
for positions and many were unhappy with their as
signments. Some had to be kept in place forceably.
“Two photographers tried to sneak up the lad
der from the quarterdeck to the surrender deck to
obtain closeups while the signing was in progress,
but they were hauled back by the seat of their
pants and dumped in place amid the chuckles of the
others. Several other guests attempted to evade
the assigned ship guards and go to other loca*
tions, but all were returned and took it good ma--
turedly.”
Murray’s most lingering recollection is the slow
ness of the Japanese delegation in reaching the
surrender deck from their launch.
“I HAD ALLOWED several minutes for their
walk, but they took such an unexpectedly long time
the ceremonies were delayed in starting. Their
snail’s pace was slower than a funeral march.”
It might well have been a funeral for the Japan
ese, led by Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu
and Army Chief of Staff General Yoshijiro Umezu.
Instructed to sign the surrender document as
representatives of Emperor Hirohito, they boarded
the Missouri as 4,000 general officers, crew mem
bers, press representatives and assorted others
jammed every available inch of space to witness the
last official action in World War II.
The 11 Japanese representatives stood facing the
Allies on the surrender deck, situated on the ship’s
starboard. MacArthur appeared shortly before 9
a.m. and read an introductory statement.
“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 carn
age of the past — a world founded upon faith and
the fulfillment of his most cherished wish — for
freedom, tolerance and justice,” he said in part.
The sun broke through in time for the signing,
answering the prayers of the horde of photographers.
Shigemitsu, hopping about on his articifical leg
with as much dignity as possible, signed for the
Emperor. Umezu then signed for the Japanese
armed forces. MacArthur was next to sign.
Charles Boatner, war correspondent for the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram and now a top information
official for the Department of the Interior, recalls
that MacArthur’s usual stolid bearing temporarily
wavered before he signed.
“His hand began trembling with emotion as he
began to sign. It was obvious to everyone there
that he was making history and he must have known
it,” Boatner recollects.
BEFORE SIGNING, MacArthur asked Lt.
Gens. Jonathan Wainwright and Arthur Percival to
accompany him to the signing table.
Wainwright, the tall Texan MacArthur left in
command at Corregidor when he left the Philip
pines, was gaunt and thin after his imprisonment
in a Jap concentration camp since the island fell in
1942. Percival likewise was in poor condition after
being taken prisoner when British forces under
(See WW II page 3)
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EDITOR GERALD GARCIA
Editorial Assistants Herky Killingsworth,
John Hotard,
Jim Butler,
Tim Lane
Photographer Herky Killingsworth
THE END OF A DREAM
Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur, seated left, signs 1945. Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, left, and Lt. Gen.
the surrender document officially ending World War II A. E. Percival stand behind MacArthur.
aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Harbor Sept. 2,
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