Posted on 09/02/2015 4:31:54 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Can't be said too often. Thanks, Homer!
Amen.
‘My job was to make sure we did not screw up’
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-missouri-surrender-20150902-story.html
“Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death — the seas bear only commerce men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way. I speak for the unnamed brave millions homeward bound to take up the challenge of that future which they did so much to salvage from the brink of disaster.
As I look back on the long, tortuous trail from those grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire world lived in fear, when democracy was on the defensive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that he has given us the faith, the courage and the power from which to mold victory. We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war.
A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war.
Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found insofar as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years, It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.
We stand in Tokyo today reminiscent of our countryman, Commodore Perry, ninety-two years ago. His purpose was to bring to Japan an era of enlightenment and progress, by lifting the veil of isolation to the friendship, trade, and commerce of the world. But alas the knowledge thereby gained of western science was forged into an instrument of oppression and human enslavement. Freedom of expression, freedom of action, even freedom of thought were denied through appeal to superstition, and through the application of force. We are committed by the Potsdam Declaration of principles to see that the Japanese people are liberated from this condition of slavery. It is my purpose to implement this commitment just as rapidly as the armed forces are demobilized and other essential steps taken to neutralize the war potential.
The energy of the Japanese race, if properly directed, will enable expansion vertically rather than horizontally. If the talents of the race are turned into constructive channels, the county can lift itself from its present deplorable state into a position of dignity.
To the Pacific basin has come the vista of a new emancipated world. Today, freedom is on the offensive, democracy is on the march. Today, in Asia as well as in Europe, unshackled peoples are tasting the full sweetness of liberty, the relief from fear.
In the Philippines, America has evolved a model for this new free world of Asia. In the Philippines, America has demonstrated that peoples of the East and peoples of the West may walk side by side in mutual respect and with mutual benefit. The history of our sovereignty there has now the full confidence of the East.
And so, my fellow countrymen, today I report to you that your sons and daughters have served you well and faithfully with the calm, deliberated determined fighting spirit of the American soldier, based upon a tradition of historical truth as against the fanaticism of an enemy supported only by mythological fiction. Their spiritual strength and power has brought us through to victory. They are homeward bound—take care of them.”
— General Douglas MacArthur, September 2, 1945; At the conclusion of the Surrender Ceremony, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, broadcast speech
https://ussmissouri.org/learn-the-history/surrender/general-macarthurs-radio-address/
Credits fore and aft took 3 minutes of the film’s herky-jerky 9:41, but a nice visual memento anyway.
That’s the only color film of the event there is.
Yes, I believe that was mentioned once or twice in the credits. I’ve seen the official B&W version, too, which seemed to be professionally photographed and edited; but certainly color adds a reality that B&W cannot offer.
Thank you for your service to us and we hope to see you in 2019.
Amazing adventure. Thank you Homer for all the work. And thank you and Happy Birthday to Victor.
I thought he ended the speech with “These proceedings are now closed.” Or something like that.
He went to a different microphone to give his broadcast speech after the surrender ceremony was closed and the Japanese delegation had departed.
My thanks to you as well, although I’ll be more effusive tomorrow. I’m quite sad that this exercise is coming to an end. I feel strange about that, as though I am sad that the war is over, when one should never be sad about the end of a war.
Ah, that would explain it then.
...”These proceedings are now closed.” As the Japanese were led away, he put an arm around Halsey’s shoulders and said, “Bill, where the hell are those airplanes?” As if on signal, a cloud of planes—B-29s and Navy fighters—roared across the sky from the south. They joined, Kenney wrote, “in a long sweeping majestic turn as they disappeared toward the mists hiding the sacred mountain of Fujiyama.” In that instant, World War II ended. But MacArthur intended to speak the first words of the peace, too, and had spent most of the night working and reworking them in his spiky handwriting. Now he returned to the microphone for a broadcast to the American people...
I guess this must mean the fat lady sang but the Fat Man has to be given a lot of the credit.
You are correct, but the sadness is not about the end of the war, but about the end of the era. I am grateful that I did not have to fight WWII; the regret is that I was never able to experience the national unity and desire, not just for military victory, but moral victory, the chance to be part of the greatest generation. As Henry V via Shakespeare put it, we hold our manhood cheap today, as we see all those standing on the Missouri, and the countless millions they represented.
Thanks again Homer.
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