Eyewitness (31 page)

The audience relaxed, but not for long. A few moments later there was a commotion on the side of the ship opposite to where I was. Heads leaned over the rails. The Japanese delegation was arriving. They were led by
Missouri
’s duty-officer onto the veranda-deck, to take up their allotted positions behind the table, facing the Allied signatories.

The thought came to me that the entry of the chief villain could hardly have been better staged had Cecil B. de Mille been the producer. Immaculately dressed in top-hat, frock-coat, striped trousers and white gloves, tall, inscrutably Oriental, his wooden leg lending his gait a sinister limp, he hobbled to the centre of the stage, a bundle of papers that could well have been mortgage-deeds under his left arm. This was Shigemitsu, the Japanese Foreign Minister.

After him came the squat, bull-necked figure of General Umezu, Chief-of-Staff of the Japanese Army General Headquarters, and two other generals, all in drab, ill-fitting uniforms. Next, top-hatted, frockcoated, the Director-General of the Central Liaison Office, Katsue Okazaki, followed by more shabby officers; and finally, a younger civilian who wore an off-white summer suit badly in need of pressing and, to add to his incongruity, in his hands a brand-new Homburg hat.

The Japanese were shepherded into threes by the duty-officer, and waited, while cameras continued to whirr and click, until the two copies of the surrender, one for the Allies and one for Japan, had been laid out on the table.

They stared fixedly ahead, the only noticeable sign of emotion the constant clenching and unclenching of General Umezu’s right hand. Promptly at nine o’ clock General MacArthur strode for the second time onto the deck, the cameras again working away frantically. For just a moment he paused, at the microphone. Then he began to speak.

‘We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored …’

He read in firm and dignified tones, although his hands and the script from which he was reading trembled. They never stopped shaking, but General MacArthur read the whole document without faltering.

Throughout the speech the Japanese stood like defiant boys caught in some delinquency but resolved not to be sorry for it.

Now the prologue was spoken, the drama about to begin.

With enviable fluency General MacArthur continued: ‘I now invite the representatives of the Emperor of Japan, and the Japanese Government, and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, to sign the instrument of surrender at the places indicated.’

There was a moment’s pause, either for effect or because someone had missed his cue. Then the top-hatted Japanese from the second row moved out to place a document on the table – the Emperor’s proclamation of surrender – while Shigemitsu took a pace forward – and stopped there.

His assistant was having trouble with his hat. He’d taken it off and placed it on the table – just where he wanted to put the document. So he picked up his topper again, laid the document down, paused with hat halfway to his head, thought better of it, and, still carrying the hat in his hand, moved back to Shigemitsu, to whom he whispered agitatedly. It could well have been a curse on Occidental hats.

As befitted a Foreign Minister and the leader of the delegation, Shigemitsu solved the matter at one shrewd and decisive stroke. He hobbled forward to the table, sat down, removed his topper, and laid it beside the documents. Top-hat Number Two, thus led, followed his leader’s example, and laid his top-hat beside Shigemitsu’s. The grave problem solved, he stood, inscrutable once more, beside his chief – only to discover that Shigemitsu had a problem of his own.

The Foreign Minister stretched out to take up the pen – and suddenly remembered his white gloves. After a sharp word from General Sutherland, Shigemitsu took off his glove – the right-hand one, which left him looking a trifle lop-sided. He then signed Japan’s unconditional surrender.

Meanwhile, as the Supreme Commander was gazing distastefully out to sea, Sutherland kept a pretty close watch on the two hats. I don’t think it would have surprised him to see a couple of white rabbits pop out of them.

Apart from a little bother with his walking stick, Shigemitsu got through the signing of the second copy without further conjuring. Then, receiving his hat, stick and right-hand glove from Okazaki, the Minister limped back to his position, while General Umezu moved out to countersign, on behalf of the Japanese Army.

The stage was now all MacArthur’s. In a voice that carried perfectly to everyone in the audience, he announced: ‘The Supreme Commander will now sign on behalf of all the Allied Powers. Will General Wainwright and General Percival step forward and accompany me while I sign.’

The two generals, gaunt skeletons from Japanese prison camps, placed themselves, at attention, one on either side of the vacant chair. MacArthur strode forward, sat down, and, taking up a pen, with a flourish signed the Allied copy of the surrender. Then, with a superb gesture, he held the pen aloft, at the full length of his outstretched left arm, in the direction of Wainwright.

The American from Bataan reached up, grabbed the pen with his left hand, half-turned towards the Supreme Commander, and acknowledged the souvenir with a salute.

General MacArthur didn’t return the salute – he was busy unscrewing the cap of a second fountain pen. With this he signed the Japanese copy of the surrender. Then, with another gesture equally superb, he held this pen aloft.

Had General Percival been forewarned about his gift? Probably not; the souvenir seemed to catch him unprepared. He received it with his right hand – and discovered he couldn’t salute. He substituted a slight bow, which the Supreme Commander didn’t acknowledge either. This time he was busy extracting his own private and personal fountain pen from his breast pocket.

With this, General MacArthur added either the date or perhaps a stroke under his signature – the Russian beard prevented me from making out which. This pen wasn’t given away. It went back into the Supreme’s breast pocket, perhaps for unborn generations of MacArthurs.

Then it was the turn of the lesser signatories.

Announced by the Supreme Commander, the representative of each of the Allied Nations came forward to the table, sat, signed, and returned to take up his stance again.

For the United States, Admiral Nimitz called Halsey and Sherman to watch, as Wainwright and Percival had done. But Halsey and Sherman were out of luck. No gift pens for them.

General Chang contented himself with one supporter. But Great Britain’s representative, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, entered into the spirit of the thing properly. He marched out with a broad grin on his face, roared for his two senior admirals to accompany him, dashed off the signatures as though they were a couple of pink gins and, widening the grin, handed the admirals a pen each.

For all this, it was Derevyanko who supplied the turn of the day. The Russian head-man summoned a triumvirate to watch his signature, one each from the Red Army, the Navy and the Air Force. Derevyanko sat. With a flourish equal to any of MacArthur’s he unbuttoned his left breast pocket and plunged his hand in. Withdrawing it, in a dramatic silence, he produced, like a conjurer, a whole handful of pens, which he laid on the table. Then he unscrewed the cap of one, signed the Allied document, screwed up the cap, flashed the pen aloft, and barked out a multi-syllabic Russian name. The Admiral of the Red Navy moved smartly forward, grabbed the pen, saluted, and darted back.

This procedure was repeated till all three pens had been disposed of. For a moment I thought Derevyanko had missed his final cue. But not he. He darted into his other pocket, produced his own pen, dashed off a Russian squiggle on the Japanese copy, pocketed the pen, rose, and leading his troupe with a grin wider than Sir Bruce Fraser’s, moved back to his position.

‘And there’, I heard an unmistakably Australian voice remark from somewhere behind me, ‘is the beginning of World War III – even before World War II is quite over!’

After that the performance of Australia’s General Blamey, despite the blaze of colour on his chest, seemed quite colourless.

So did that of Canada’s delegate. Colonel Cosgrove, that lonely Canadian, had no-one to stand behind him. He came out to sign, alone. Just as he was about to put his pen to paper, the sun broke through the clouds for the first time. The document gleamed. The Colonel brushed a hand across his eyes, and completed the job as quickly as possible. He moved modestly back to stand, once more alone, swaying very slightly on his heels.

Suddenly there was a hold-up.

General Leclerc, the Frenchman, pen in hand, was about to sign. He paused, and threw a startled glance at General MacArthur. His eyes went back to the document, then once more, with the suggestion of a puzzled Gallic shrug, mutely sought the help of the Supreme Commander.

There was a stillness, to be broken by General MacArthur’s footsteps on the deck, as he strode across to the table. Imperiously, a forefinger jabbed the Instrument of Surrender.

I was too far away to hear, but I imagined the words:

‘Sign on the dotted line. Let’s go!’

Again with that hardly perceptible suggestion of a shrug, General Leclerc signed. Then he transferred his attention to the Japanese copy of the surrender.

Again that startled recoil, the raised shoulders, the mute appeal to the Supreme Commander. And again the purposeful stride that brought MacArthur’s shadow abruptly across the white paper.

This time Leclerc’s lips parted. Did he speak English? Was France spelt with a small ‘f’? Was some dark de Gaullist plot about to be perpetrated? MacArthur cut him short. Comedy from the powerful Russians was one thing. Recalcitrance from recently occupied France was another. The forefinger jabbed. The chin jutted. The whispered command was almost a bark.

Leclerc scarcely hunched a shoulder as he signed. He stalked back to his position a picture of offended dignity.

Now it only remained for New Zealand and the Netherlands to sign. Twice the same pantomime was repeated. Air Vice-Marshal Issit and Admiral Helfrich reminded me of golfers in their first tournament confronted with an unplayable lie. There was the jaunty approach to the ball, and confident grasping of the club, the baffled look as the impossibility of playing the shot was suddenly realised, the despairing halfturn in the direction of the caddie. And twice again the caddie was inexorable. There was no need to pick up and drop, with a penalty. ‘Just play it as it lies – and don’t hold up the field’ was, obviously, the verdict.

Apparently irritated by these delays, General MacArthur began rounding off the proceedings almost before the Dutchman was back in his position. Into the microphone he expressed a brief hope for perpetual peace, added a brief reference to God, and announced: ‘The proceedings are closed.’

Then turning away, and followed closely by the Russians, General Blamey, the Royal Navy and the others, he moved off in the direction of the Admiral’s cabin.

There was a sudden buzz of conversation around the ship.

War correspondents reached for typewriters.

But the proceedings were not quite over. General Sutherland, taking over from the Supreme Commander, had beckoned to Okazaki. The Japanese moved forward to the table.

General Sutherland slowly rolled up the Japanese copy of the surrender, and handed it to Okazaki, with another document – the Allies General Order Number One to the defeated enemy.

Bowing, Okazaki received both documents and, returning to the Japanese Delegation, passed them, from hand to hand, up to Shigemitsu.

With our typewriters, we all began to move off. We had work to do.

But suddenly everyone stopped again.

All the Japanese had gathered around Shigemitsu, who still held the unrolled surrender document in his hand. Some were pointing at it. Some were gesticulating. All were talking. None was inscrutable.

With a dramatic snap, Shigemitsu rolled up the document. It passed rapidly from hand to hand until it reached Okazaki again. Moving with unoriental haste, he rushed it across to General Sutherland. He unrolled it, pointing, talking and spluttering. The General was taking all this quite calmly, until he looked at where Okazaki was pointing. Then it was obvious that something was decidedly wrong.

General Sutherland hit himself such a violent blow of consternation to the head that his cap fell off. Its hitting the deck was like a command for silence.

Stunned, we all watched Sutherland. Stunned, Sutherland gazed at the document of surrender. Nothing happened for what seemed hours – hours during which we asked ourselves all sorts of questions. Had the Japanese repudiated the surrender at the very last minute? Was the war still on? Where’s my pistol? Those planes suddenly roaring down on
Missouri –
are they ours?

Then, all at once, with the simplest of gestures, General Sutherland restored peace to the world.

He strode to the table, sat down, and picked up a pen. On the Surrender, which a staff-officer unrolled before him, he drew a short curved line, with two little oblique tips at its head.

‘It’s an arrow!’ someone beside me breathed.

Sutherland repeated the stroke – the curved line, the tips – and twice more, on the Japanese copy. Then the staff-officer rolled up the document, and while the General repeated the arrows on the Allied copy, Okazaki carried the first document back to the Japanese. They unrolled it, looked at it, and broke into smiles. Then they began to move away to the rails, and over the side into the waiting boat.

Not a word was spoken, but it was obvious what had happened.

Alone and self-conscious, Colonel Cosgrove, the signatory junior in rank to all the others, had, by a mischievous prank of fate, been momentarily dazzled by that single beam of sunshine that had broken through the clouds just as he was about to sign. Temporarily blinded, he had signed the surrender on the wrong line, not for Canada, but for France. The Frenchman had been forced to sign for New Zealand, the New Zealander for the Netherlands, and Admiral Helfrich had signed for no-one at all.