Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [119]
The young Briton was not the only victim of condoned murder. That same day, following the emperor’s surrender speech, officers at the Western Military District headquarters took seventeen B-29 crewmen from their wretched cells and, one by one, the prisoners were murdered.
None of the killers was ever punished.
Despite the emperor’s broadcast, some Japanese die-hards rejected the idea of surrender. In fact, an army faction had attempted a coup at the palace, seeking to prevent broadcast of Hirohito’s announcement. Offshore, Imperial Navy fliers launched sporadic attacks upon the Allied fleet during the early afternoon, entirely without success. The thirty-fourth and last U.S. Navy shootdown of the day went to a Belleau Wood pilot, Ensign Clarence A. Moore. The Judy dive bomber he destroyed at 2:00 P.M. officially ended aerial combat in the Second World War.
Throughout the task force, sailors took turns blowing ships’ whistles while others shot off flares and star shells. Those plugged into the intelligence network pondered the arcane verbiage of Hirohito’s capitulation.
The Imperial rescript was an amazing document, containing outrageous lies (“it being far from Our thoughts . . . to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations”) and gross understatement (“The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage”). Nevertheless, it urged the Japanese people (subjects, not citizens) to “continue as one family from generation to generation.”
Aside from the war developing “not necessarily to Japan’s advantage,” Hirohito cited “a most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable.” Since only the B-29 could deliver the new weapon, the enemy head of state acknowledged the Superfort’s pivotal role in ending the war.
After initial outbursts, surprising quiet descended upon Allied bases. On that day the victors alternately expressed joy and regret. Some of the new fliers realized that their eighteen-month journey to combat had been cut short at the last possible moment. Having worked harder than they had ever done before—and some never would again—they saw their commitment to their nation end with a whimper.
At le Shima off Okinawa, the veteran 348th Fighter Group had just received some new P-51 pilots. They included Lieutenant Robert Stevens, who relished the prestige of a Mustang jockey. He sported a .45 pistol in a shoulder holster, vowing, “The Japs will never take me alive.” But somehow he had not gotten around to testing his weapon.
On V-J night, Stevens reckoned that he would never have a better reason to shoot his pistol. Loading the big Colt, he raised it in the Ryukyu darkness and pulled the trigger. He confided, “All I got was a very loud click.” Six tries later his magazine was empty but not a shot had been fired.
The next day a chagrined Bob Stevens took his pistol to the armorer’s shop for a diagnosis. The verdict: a broken firing pin. Decades later he was able to laugh at himself: “The Japs would’ve got me after all.”
On Guam the victors cut loose in a spontaneous eruption of pure glee. For most men it meant an end to years of drudgery, the unavoidable and most common wartime experience. For the combat crews, it meant more: it meant they were young and alive and had a future.
Joyous youngsters shot rifles and pistols into the air; others ran about shouting, waving their arms, and exchanging heartfelt handshakes. A few admitted to crying.
But far sooner than anyone would have suspected, silence settled over Guam and the other islands. Engines fell silent; bombs lay inert; lights were dimmed; and, in Churchillian terms, young men slept the sleep of the saved.
Interregnum
Almost immediately General Carl Spaatz ordered a “display of air power . . . continuous and increasing between 19 August and V-J Day,” slated for September 2. The intent was to demonstrate America’s absolute military superiority beyond any possible doubt to Japan