MacArthur signing, for the U.S. acknowledgement of the surrender
September 2, 1945, 80 years ago: Foreign Minister Mamoru
Shigemitsu, acting for the Empire of Japan, signs the Instrument of Surrender
to end World War II, on the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri, anchored in
Tokyo Bay. Shigemetsu later served as Deputy Prime Minister, and died in 1957.
Representing the Allied Powers:
* The United States of America: General of the Army Douglas
MacArthur, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Admiral John S. McCain Sr., grandfather of the longtime Senator and Presidential candidate.
* The British Empire: British
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Bruce Fraser, Canadian Colonel Lawrence Moore
Cosgrave, Australian General Sir Thomas Blamey, and New Zealand Air Vice Marshall
Sir Leonard Isitt.
* France: Général d'armée Philippe Leclerc.
* The Netherlands: Vice Admiral
Conrad Helfrich.
* The Republic of China: General Xu Yongchang.
* The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: Lieutenant General Kuzma
Derevyanko.
Admiral Fraser was the last survivor of these men, living until 1981.
World War II is over, and the Allies have won. Now, the
victorious nations have work to do, to set their own people free. The British
Empire will get there first, mostly getting it done by 1960. France will take a little longer, due to a nasty war in Algeria. America will take until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Soviet
Union, and the countries formed when it broke apart? Some of those countries have been free, to this day.
USS Missouri
The Missouri, built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was the last ship
built by the U.S. Navy to be classified as a "battleship." The "Mighty Mo" also
served in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War, and was decommissioned in 1992. It is now a museum
ship – appropriately, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii.
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