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By Root 1195 0

Dagenham, Essex, a cook’s mother wrote to the captain of the British cruiser Nigeria, serving in the Pacific: “Dear Sir, we send our greatest thanks & congratulations to you, all the crew & my son Jimmy Underwood, mess 42B. It really seems almost unbelievable that peace with Japan has now been proclaimed & so many of our loved ones will now be spared. You have all done so well and we at home owe you so much. To say ‘thanks’ is such a small word to show the appreciation we feel in our inner souls. To be parted from our loved ones…has seemed an eternity. No more weeping and sleepless nights & wet pillows. The ‘blitz’ all finished and now to make ready for a new home to rest our boys. God speed your return, thanks a million to you, I am faithfully, yours sincerely Mrs. Alice Underwood. PS Let us think for a while of those who have ‘passed on for this good cause.’ They will NEVER be forgotten.”

CAPTAIN KOUICHI ITO of the Japanese 32nd Regiment was one of several hundred Japanese who escaped captivity on Okinawa, hiding in the island’s multitude of caves, scavenging for food with some little aid from local people, digging up potatoes in the fields under cover of darkness. On 22 August, a Japanese prisoner under American escort appeared at the mouth of the cave being occupied by Ito and his handful of companions, and told them the war was over. They hesitated, but finally decided to believe him. They had seen the offshore firework display a week earlier, as U.S. ships celebrated the announcement of victory. “It did not seem likely that the Americans were making this up,” said Ito. He emerged, and was taken to hear a recording of the emperor’s broadcast. Ito had been officially posted missing, along with the rest of the doomed garrison of Okinawa.

When finally he came home to his parents, he found that while his father had remained convinced that he was alive, his mother had for months been praying for his shade at the shrine for the dead. He found himself collapsing into tears, which he was unable either to check or explain to himself. “I marvelled at my own survival, and could not understand it. I kept thinking of the 90 percent of my men who had died.” He felt embittered and frustrated by the collapse of his own hopes for a career as a warrior, as well for his country’s defeat. Instead of finding glory in military prowess, he settled down to a humdrum life in his father’s transport contracting business. When he married, his wife said sternly: “In the army, you have grown accustomed to having lots of people to boss about, and orderlies to do everything for you. I do not intend to become a replacement for them.” It was many years before the ghosts of defeat on Okinawa were laid in Ito’s mind, his furious emotions calmed.

THERE WAS MUCH American debate about whether the formal surrender should be signed on Japanese soil, or at sea. Truman, the most famous Missourian, made the decision. The battleship bearing his state’s name was at sea south of Japan, and the men were opening a new mail delivery. The chief yeoman dashed up to Captain Murray, her commanding officer, and said: “Captain, Missouri is going to be the surrender ship—here’s a clipping from the Santa Barbara paper.” Murray, a forty-seven-year-old Texan who had only commanded the great vessel since May, found that his own wife had sent him the same cutting. The ship had been at sea for eighteen months, and showed it. An appeal for paint was signalled round the task group. Only a slender supply could be found, because paint stores had been such a fire hazard aboard ships in combat. Men began holystoning decks that had been camouflage-tinted, cleaning every visible part of Missouri. The Royal Navy’s Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser offered a table for the ceremony, which Murray wanted to accept “because it gave the British a chance to say: ‘We contributed something.’” In the end, however, this well-meaning condescension was frustrated. A wardroom table was set up on deck, simply because it was bigger.

On the afternoon of 1 September, the huge battleship eased its way cautiously