M’ARTHUR OPENS HEADQUARTERS IN YOKOHAMA; FREED PRISONERS CHARGE BRUTALITY BY FOE (8/31/45)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 8/31/45 | Frank L. Kluckhohn, George E. Jones, W.H. Lawrence, Julius Ochs Adler, Leslie Nakashima, more

[henkster]

Not when they tied Australian POW’s to trees in New Guinea, used them for bayonet practice, and then left notes on them saying “He took a long time to die.”

[Hebrews 11:6]

Just as the Nazis treated non-Aryans as subhuman, the Japanese treated non-Japanese as subhuman

The potential for such near-universal human behavior was created, of course, by God when in effect he forcibly separated men by confusing their languages (and creating the races) to disperse them post-Babel. Man's initial refusal to disperse had led to such constant horrific fratricide that the only solution was Noah's Flood. So, even though subsequently societies have so often been cruel to other societies, at least He has achieved His twin goals of first filling the planet and then secondly using that wide dispersal to enable the birth of the billions of humans He planned, so that many can enjoy Him forever.

[EternalVigilance]

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/truman111345.html

Harry Truman Administration:
Letter to Attlee Concerning Resettlement of Jewish Refugees in Palestine

[Released November 13, 1945. Dated August 31, 1945 ]

My dear Mr. Prime Minister:

Because of the natural interest of this Government in the present condition and future fate of those displaced persons in Germany who may prove to be stateless or non-repatriable, we recently sent Mr. Earl G. Harrison to inquire into the situation.

Mr. Harrison was formerly the United States Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, and is now the Representative of this Government on the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees. The United Kingdom and the United States, as you know, have taken an active interest in the work of this Committee.

Instructions were given to Mr. Harrison to inquire particularly into the problems and needs of the Jewish refugees among the displaced persons.

Mr. Harrison visited not only the American zone in Germany, but spent some time also in the British zone where he was extended every courtesy by the 21st Army Headquarters.

I have now received his report. In view of our conversations at Potsdam I am sure that you will find certain portions of the report interesting. I am, therefore, sending you a copy.

I should like to call your attention to the conclusions and recommendations appearing on page 8 and the following pages — especially the references to Palestine. It appears that the available certificates for immigration to Palestine will be exhausted in the near future. It is suggested that the granting of an additional one hundred thousand of such certificates would contribute greatly to a sound solution for the future of Jews still in Germany and Austria, and for other Jewish refugees who do not wish to remain where they are or who for understandable reasons do not desire to return to their countries of origin.

On the basis of this and other information which has come to me I concur in the belief that no other single matter is so important for those who have known the horrors of concentration camps for over a decade as is the future of immigration possibilities into Palestine. The number of such persons who wish immigration to Palestine or who would qualify for admission there is, unfortunately, no longer as large as it was before the Nazis began their extermination program. As I said to you in Potsdam, the American people, as a whole, firmly believe that immigration into Palestine should not be closed and that a reasonable number of Europe’s persecuted Jews should, in accordance with their wishes, be permitted to resettle there.

I know you are in agreement on the proposition that future peace in Europe depends in large measure upon our finding sound solutions of problems confronting the displaced and formerly persecuted groups of people. No claim is more meritorious than that of the groups who for so many years have known persecution and enslavement.

The main solution appears to lie in the quick evacuation of as many as possible of the non-repatriable Jews, who wish it, to Palestine. If it is to be effective, such action should not be long delayed.

Very sincerely yours,
HARRY S. TRUMAN

Sources: Public Papers of the President

[EternalVigilance]

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=60671

Harry S. Truman
Executive Order 9608 - Providing for the Termination of the Office of War Information, and for the Disposition of Its Functions and of Certain Functions of the Office of Inter-american Affairs

August 31, 1945

By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes, including Title I of the First War Powers Act, 1941, and as President of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:

1. Effective as of the date of this order:

(1) There are transferred to and consolidated in an Interim International Information Service, which is hereby established in the Department of State, those functions of the Office of War Information (established by Executive Order No. 9182 of June 13, 1942), and those informational functions of the Office of Inter-American Affairs (established as the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs by Executive Order No. 8840 of July 30, 1941 and renamed as the Office of Inter-American Affairs by Executive Order No. 9532 of March 23, 1945), which are performed abroad or which consist of or are concerned with informing the people of other nations about any matter in which the United States has an interest, together with so much of the personnel, records, property, and appropriation balances of the Office of War Information and the Office of Inter-American Affairs as the Director of the Bureau of the Budget shall determine to relate primarily to the functions so transferred. Pending the abolition of the said Service under paragraph 3(a) of this order, (1) the head of the Service, who shall be designated by the Secretary of State, shall be responsible to the Secretary of State or to such other officer of the Department s the Secretary shall direct, (2) the Service shall, except as otherwise provide in this order, be administered as an organizational entity in the Department of State, (3) the Secretary may transfer from the Service, to such agencies of the Department of State as he shall designate or establish, any function of the Service, and (4) the Secretary may terminate any function of the Service, in which event he shall provide for the winding up of the affairs relating to any function so terminated.

(b) There are transferred to the Bureau of the Budget the functions of the Bureau of Special Services of the Office of War Information and functions of the Office of War Information with respect to the review of publications of Federal agencies, together with so much of the personnel, records, and property, and appropriation balances of the Office of War Information as the Director of the bureau of the Budget shall determine relate primarily to the said functions.

(c) All those provisions of prior Executive orders which are in conflict with this order are amended accordingly. Paragraph 6 of the said Executive Order No. 8840 and paragraphs 3, 6, and 8 of the said Executive Order No. 9182 are revoked.

2. Effective as o the close of business September 15, 1945:

(a) There are abolished the functions of the Office of War Information then remaining.

(b) The Director of the Office of War Information shall, pending the abolition of the Office of War Information under paragraph 3(b) of this order, proceed to wind up the affairs of the Office relating to such abolished functions.

3. Effective as of the close of business December 31, 1945:

(a) The Interim International Information Service, provided for in paragraph 1(a) of this order, together with any functions then remaining under the Service, is abolished.

(b) The Office of War Information, including the office of the Director of the Office of War Information, is abolished.

(c) There are transferred to the Department of the Treasury all of the personnel, records, property, and appropriation balances of the Interim International Information Service and of the Office of War Information then remaining, for final liquidation, and so much thereof as the Director of the Bureau of the Budget shall determine to be necessary shall be utilized by the Secretary of the Treasury in winding up all of the affairs of the Service.

HARRY S. TRUMAN
THE WHITE HOUSE,
August 31, 1945

Citation: Harry S. Truman: “Executive Order 9608 - Providing for the Termination of the Office of War Information, and for the Disposition of Its Functions and of Certain Functions of the Office of Inter-american Affairs,” August 31, 1945.

[henkster]

Was there an act of Congress that authorized the creation of an OWI? Or it’s abolition? Or were those just “orders” created by FDR and rescinded in the same way by Truman?

I believe Executive Orders are necessary for the operation of the government of the United States. However, in my humble opinion, every “Executive Order” of the President of the United States should in the very first line of the order make reference to the act of Congress that authorizes the issuance of the order. The Executive is meant to carry out policy, not create it on a whim.

But that’s just silly me, thinking that our Constitution is more than a scrap of paper we trot out to show grade school kids what a great free country we are.

[EternalVigilance]

America and the Reconstruction of Italy, 1945-1949

https://books.google.com/books?id=dnyXtXWR0wwC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=august+31+1945&source=bl&ots=ot73gtObmM&sig=cyHb6fCimOZBhoP4bmSqFhUU9iY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCEQ6AEwATgyahUKEwiUouyErNTHAhWDUJIKHWBVDmk#v=onepage&q=august%2031%201945&f=false

[EternalVigilance]

I agree with you in large part, but not completely. In addition to the need for executive orders to execute the constitutionally-valid laws passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President, there are functions of the executive branch that simply have to do with the execution of the President’s constitutionally-spelled out duties. Congress has no legitimate authority over those functions.

I hope you don’t get me wrong. When it comes to national defense and war-fighting, the framers of the Constitution gave both the executive and the legislative branch vast powers.

The incredible tension between those constitutional powers vested in the two branches is constant. And frankly, I think the framers wanted it that way.

[EternalVigilance]

I guess I would come into complete agreement with your post if the bolded five words were added.

I believe Executive Orders are necessary for the operation of the government of the United States. However, in my humble opinion, every “Executive Order” of the President of the United States should in the very first line of the order make reference to the act of Congress, or the explicit Constitutional provision, that authorizes the issuance of the order. The Executive is meant to carry out policy, not create it on a whim.

[EternalVigilance]

http://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/displaced-persons/resourc2.htm

Letter from President Truman to General Eisenhower enclosing the Harrison Report on the treatment of displaced Jews in the U.S. zone

September 29, 1945

White House News Release.

August 31, 1945

MY DEAR GENERAL EISENHOWER:

I have received and considered the report of Mr. Earl G. Harrison, our representative on the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, upon his mission to inquire into the condition and needs of displaced persons in Germany who may be stateless or non-repatriable, particularly Jews. I am sending you a copy of that report. I have also had a long conference with him on the same subject matter.

While Mr. Harrison makes due allowance for the fact that during the early days of liberation the huge task of mass repatriation required main attention he reports conditions which now exist and which require prompt remedy. These conditions, I know, are not in conformity with policies promulgated by SHAEF, now Combined Displaced Persons Executive. But they are what actually exists in the field. In other words, the policies are not being carried out by some of your subordinate officers.

For example, military government officers have been authorized and even directed to requisition billeting facilities from the German population for the benefit of displaced persons. Yet, from this report, this has not been done on any wide scale. Apparently it is being taken for granted that all displaced persons, irrespective of their former persecution or the likelihood that their repatriation or resettlement will be delayed, must remain in camps-many of which are overcrowded and heavily guarded. Some of these camps are the very ones where these people were herded together, starved, tortured and made to witness the death of their fellow-inmates and friends and relatives. The announced policy has been to give such persons preference over the German civilian population in housing. But the practice seems to be quite another thing.

We must intensify our efforts to get these people out of camps and into decent houses until they can be repatriated or evacuated. These houses should be requisitioned from the German civilian population. That is one way to implement the Potsdam policy that the German people “cannot escape responsibility for what they have brought upon themselves.”

I quote this paragraph with particular reference to the Jews among the displaced persons:

“As matters now stand, we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them. They are in concentration camps in large numbers under our military guard instead of S.S. troops. One is led to wonder whether the German people, seeing this, are not supposing that we are following or at least condoning Nazi policy.”

You will find in the report other illustrations of what I mean.

I hope you will adopt the suggestion that a more extensive plan of field visitation by appropriate Army Group Headquarters be instituted, so that the humane policies which have been enunciated are not permitted to be ignored in the field. Most of the conditions now existing in displaced persons camps would quickly be remedied if through inspection tours they came to your attention or to the attention of your supervisory officers.

I know you will agree with me that we have a particular responsibility toward these victims of persecution and tyranny who are in our zone. We must make clear to the German people that we thoroughly abhor the Nazi policies of hatred and persecution. We have no better opportunity to demonstrate this than by the manner in which we ourselves actually treat the survivors remaining in Germany.

I hope you will report to me as soon as possible the steps you have been able to take to clean up the conditions mentioned in the report.

I am communicating directly with the British Government in an effort to have the doors of Palestine opened to such of these displaced persons as wish to go there.

Very sincerely yours,

HARRY S. TRUMAN

General of the Army D. D. Eisenhower

[EternalVigilance]

http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/history-up-close/surrender-at-marcus-island/

Surrender at Marcus Island

The surrender ceremony that took place on the deck of the battleship Missouri (BB 63) in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, received the most attention and acclaim for marking the end of World War II. However, in the weeks leading up to that event, at islands scattered around the Pacific, smaller and less formal proceedings took place as Japanese garrisons surrendered to Allied forces. One such place was Marcus Island, which in August 1943, had been the target of strikes that marked the combat debuts of the Navy’s new Essex-class and Independence-class aircraft carriers.

Two years later, on August 31, 1945, flying the flag of Rear Admiral Francis Whiting, the destroyer Bagley (DD 386) arrived at Marcus Island. Later that day, on the deck of the destroyer, which had been moored at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941, Whiting accepted the surrender of the Japanese garrison on Marcus Island. An eyewitness to the events surrounding this ceremony was a hospital corpsman, Pharmacist’s Mate Joseph M. Clayworth, who left an account of his experiences and observations.

Read the first hand account at the link:

http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/history-up-close/surrender-at-marcus-island/

[colorado tanker]

I still think there was something far more virulent and malignant at work in Japan during this generation.

I'm interested in our learned friend's thoughts, but would offer my two cents. My understanding was that the Meiji Restoration through WWI was a time of fast modernization and industrialization where the Japanese sought to develop along European lines. The Army was modeled on European armies and behaved along those lines.

But extreme nationalist sentiments were building, beginning when after winning the Russo-Japanese War, European powers and American pressured Japan into giving back some of her gains. The 1920's were a turbulent time when civilian government was losing credibility to extreme nationalists, who had an increasingly racist view of non-Japanese. By 1930 an Army dominated by extreme nationalists was operating practically without any civilian governmental control.

There was also great resentment of America in Japan. Teddy Roosevelt had pressured them over the Russian peace. The Exclusion Act was greatly resented. The militarists were offended by the Washington Naval Treaty ratios. So, there were not very friendly feelings toward us to check the militarists attitude.

The bottom line is I agree with you that there was something virulent and malignant going on during the interwar years in Japan.

[InMemoriam]

I still think Yamashita got a bum deal by being hanged.

Did you know that he executed Japanese soldiers for killing civilians in Malaya? I imagine you are talking about his problems with command authority vis a vis the IJN.

Homma was railroaded, too, although he was shot rather than hanged after a direct appeal by his wife to MacArthur. He ordered that the Bataan marchers be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention, despite Japan's rejection of the Convention as an unequal treaty, and furious opposition from powerful officers who completely circumvented his orders, even to the extent of ordering (without effect) the execution of all Allied POWs from Bataan and Corregidor.

The logic of Japanese rejection of the Geneva Convention is interesting. There will never be Japanese POWs, since all Japanese will die rather than be captured, so the treaty proposes unequal responsibilities.

One version of Homma's last moments includes the line, "If I were afraid of guns, I probably would have found a different line of work."

[Hebrews 11:6]

there was something virulent and malignant going on during the interwar years in Japan.

It's such a shame that Obama wasn't born eighty years earlier so he could have given them everything they wanted.

[EternalVigilance]

http://conelrad.blogspot.com/2010/12/first-yank-into-tokyo-atomic.html

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still standing when Gordon Douglas’s cheapie World War II adventure picture, First Yank Into Tokyo, completed production on March 3, 1945. For months this movie about an undercover soldier who infiltrates the Empire sat on a shelf awaiting its turn for a bottom-rung release. But after Fat Man and Little Boy were dropped on the aforementioned Japanese cities, the fortunes of the neglected little picture changed dramatically. Indeed, with news of the fantastic new weapon dominating front pages around the world, the savvy producers decided to re-work a critical plot device in their film to capitalize on the mania for all things atomic. And they succeeded in beating their competition to theaters with the world’s first feature to exploit the Bomb.

[henkster]

I agree with your take on EOs; there are some things that go with the territory. But every EO should cite its authority for issuance, whether constitutional or statutory.

[henkster]

I thought that while Yamashita was a tough commander, he was basically honorable. You are correct in your assumption about my belief why I think he got a raw deal. A substantial basis for his execution was “war crimes” committed in the defense of Manila. However, the local Japanese naval commander refused to follow Yamashita’s order to abandon Manila and make it an open city. The local guy was the one responsible for the atrocities on the Filippino civilian population. But we couldn’t dig the guy’s body out of the rubble he created to try him, so Yamashita had to do.

In Yamanshita’s appeal to the United States Supreme Court, Justice Murphy wrote a compelling dissent why Yamashita should not have been executed. Unfortunately, only he and Justice Rutledge were so inclined.

As a general rule, I do not like war crimes trials of military leaders. I believe “I was just following orders” is a defense, because that’s their job. I do not feel the same way about a civilian national command authority.

[EternalVigilance]

Eau Claire’s class of 1945 recalls how World War II defined their high school years

http://www.leadertelegram.com/News/Front-Page/2015/07/10/War-and-memories.html

At their 70-year class reunion, as they greet old friends for maybe the last time, some on the tail end of the Greatest Generation recall how World War II defined their high school years in Eau Claire

It seemed almost weekly that Eau Claire Senior High School principal David Barnes’ voice would echo over the intercom to announce the names of local soldiers who had been killed or captured in World War II.

Students at the school, who attended classes in the three-story brick building at the top of the downtown hill on Main Street — now the Eau Claire school district’s headquarters — came to expect the reality of war that often seeped into classrooms and stayed with the class of 1945 throughout their high school years...

http://www.leadertelegram.com/News/Front-Page/2015/07/10/War-and-memories.html

[EternalVigilance]

Thanks.

[Hebrews 11:6]

As a general rule, I do not like war crimes trials of military leaders. I believe “I was just following orders” is a defense, because that’s their job. I do not feel the same way about a civilian national command authority.

I wonder if you'd mind fleshing that out just a bit--that is, persuade me. After all, there's "war crimes" and then there's "WAR CRIMES." While reading about all the WW2 atrocities, I've idly wondered whether I would be morally obliged to simply shoot the SS Colonel (or General or Fuhrer) I was serving under who ordered me to kill some Jews along with as many of his obedient underlings as I could before being gunned down myself.

[henkster]

Except that according to the Milgram experiment, you would not have shot your superior who gave the orders to shoot the Jews, you would have shot the Jews instead. Just as they’d ordered you to do. The military is conditioned to follow orders, and that’s what we want them to to do. Their job is to kill people and break things when told to do so. So I give them a great deal of deference.

And I will go back to what I’ve learned not only from the Milgrim experiment, a study of Nazi Germany, and some observations of our own country. People and institutions can slide into depravity and become numb to it. No, you wouldn’t go stuff Jews into ovens today because someone in a position of authority told you to. But with the proper conditioning and preparation.... The Germans never thought it would happen to them, and then recoiled in horror when they walked throught the camps they created. Their leaders cried in their cells after watching the motion pictures they made of their Holocaust, knowing they would surely meet the hangman for it.

We don’t think it can can happen here. So just when do Americans recoil in horror over our Holocaust at Planned Parenthood? When do the Planned Parenthood administrators cry in their cells?

OK, enough self righteous bloviating. ;)