Legacy — What the War Left Behind

OPENING SCENE

The USS Missouri is a battleship of 45,000 tons, launched January 29, 1944. On September 2, 1945, it is anchored in Tokyo Bay with approximately 250 Allied warships visible in the harbor and 1,000 Allied aircraft flying in formation overhead. The display is deliberately overwhelming. The Japanese delegation — two civilians in top hats and morning coats, military officers in full dress uniform — boards the ship and stands at the surrender table. Above them, framed and mounted to the ship's superstructure, is a 31-star American flag: the flag that had flown from Commodore Matthew Perry's ship when Perry's squadron anchored in Tokyo Bay in 1853 and forced Japan to open its ports to Western trade. MacArthur had it brought from Annapolis for the occasion. The symbolism was intended: the American arrival in Japan's harbor that had begun Japan's modern era was now witnessing its close.

MacArthur speaks briefly. He says: "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 carnage of the past — a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance, and justice."

The representatives of the 9 Allied nations sign: the United States, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. The ceremony ends at 9:25 AM. The war is over.

What is not over is the work of reckoning with what the war had done and building the structures that might prevent another one. That work would consume the next five years and, in some respects, has never fully ended.