53,000 ton plank ship of admiral becomes therd fleet scene of an unforgettable ceremony, marking the complete and formal surrender of japan. In the bay of tokyo itself, the United States destroyer buchanan comes alongside bringing , representatives of the allied powers to witness the capitulation. General of the army, Douglas Macarthur supreme allied , commander for the occupation of japan, boards the missouri. Admiral nimitz and Admiral Halsey welcome macarthur and his chief of staff, general sutherland, aboard. The admiral escorts General Macarthur to the veranda deck, where the ceremony is supposed to take place. It is september 2, 1945. Right now, we are on the 01 level of the battleship missouri, also known as the veranda deck. But, thanks to the events of september 2, 1945, we now call this deck the surrender deck. This is where september 2, 1945, the japanese signed the Unconditional Surrender ending world war ii. Behind me here is where the table sat that day. The ship looked different. The nice, shady canopy overhead was not installed, and the term behind me was rotated 30 in the target behind me was rotated 30 degrees to star board to make more room for all the officials to be on board. If you had looked above us that day, you would see thousands of members of missouris crew, crews of other ships, hanging onto anything they could trying to get a glimpse of what was about to occur on this deck. At 9 00 in the morning, the ceremony was supposed to start. Members of the japanese delegation were making their way on board. There were 11 of them that made their way up the ladder behind me, and on this deck come at 9 02 in the morning, General Macarthur, admiral nimitz, and Admiral Halsey descended from above to start the ceremony. The first person to sign the surrender documents was someone signing on behalf of the japanese delegation. The next would be the general on behalf of the military. The third was Douglas Macarthur himself. He signed as supreme allied commander. He did not actually represent the United States. The fourth person to sign would be admiral nimitz. Following them china, ussr, australia, canada and, canada, the netherlands, and new zealand in turn. There are two copies of the surrender documents because one was to be kept by the United States and one kept by japan, so we do not display the original, for obvious reasons. We have replicas on board. The originals are in the National Archives in washington, d. C. And the war museum in tokyo. We have a replica of one of macarthurs pens. He used six pens, and he only had to sign his name twice, one on each copy, but he used one each for douglas, mac, and arthur. And on the second document. He did this very simple reason and one we still do today when we look at lawmakers when they sign important laws. What he wanted to do afterward was to give these pens away as souvenirs. Following the last signature, macarthur stepped up to the microphone and said simply these procedures are closed. These proceedings are closed. From the beginning of the ceremony at 9 02 to 9 25, 23 minutes, that is all it took to end the bloodiest conflict in human history. Now we are back in this area of the uss missouri, and we have come to recognize this part of the ship for an event that happened in world war ii. And it is a touching event, and it tells you a lot about the ship and its crew, particularly its Commanding Officer. In the battle of okinawa, the last great naval battle of world war ii, the missouri saw herself under kamikaze attack. Kamikaze is a word that means a lot in the United States and other countries. But the word is far older. It dates back to the 13th industry, when twice japan was under attack by a mongolian fleet. Twice, it was wiped out, and that was known as a kamikaze, or a divine wind. This divine wind is with the japanese called on in the war, particularly in the battle of okinawa, to save the country from invasion. It is this threat that the missouri found herself facing april 11, 1945. The pilot was about 7000 yards off the battleships starboard side. He came in low. Fire, hitting him a few times, and at 14 42 on the afternoon, april 11, 1945, he planted his plane on the side of he slammed his plane in the side of the missouri just behind here where you see these moorings. That day, the left wing of the his plane in the 500pound bomb he was carrying fell into the ocean. They did not cause any damage to the missouri or crew, and the bomb did not detonate. The right wing, however, flew onto the missouri, and ignited a huge fire. Other ships around the missouri thought she was sinking her crew , was so fast that they put the fire out in minutes, and they did a headcount afterwards and found out that nobody from the missouris crew had been killed, and there were only two minor injuries. Only a few minor injuries. As they began to clean up the wreckage of the wing, they found the body of the pilot. Captain callahan, the ships first Commanding Officer, after finding out the pilots body had landed on the missouri, made the order to take the pilots body below deck to prepare it for a full military funeral. You can imagine members of the missouri were not particularly happy, but they respected their Commanding Officer, and they followed through, and, that night, embers of the crew stayed up and members of the crew handsewn a japanese rising sun insignia. You should be buried with the flag of your country. The next day, april 12, 1945, on the deck behind me, there was a funeral held for the pilot. Six men stood holding the body , the bugler, the himself, the captain who said a dead enemy is no longer your enemy. Then at 9 00 in the morning, they committed his body to see. To the sea. Not many people have heard of the story, even though it is one we like to tell at the missouri, and the reason no one heard of it is a got no press coverage, no one really talked about it, and that is because april 12, 1945, the day of the funeral, was the day that president roosevelt died and Harry S Truman was sworn in as our next president of the United States. Now we are inside the captains cabin on the missouri. This is a large space that is very well decorated. It is for the captain of the missouri when the ship is in port specifically, when you have visiting dignitaries, and he needs to act as a diplomat in a foreign port. The uss Missouri Memorial Association has a very large, large historic collection. A large part of it has actually been donated by former crewmembers, and the collection itself spans from the turnofthecentury with the original battleship missouri all the way to modern day, with the current uss missouri submarine. While we are in your, we pulled in here, out some artifacts for display. In here, we pulled out some artifacts for display. The two here are two very important pieces of the ships history. They are both fragments of the plane, the kamikaze plane that hit the missouri in 1945. The piece on the left still had has factory paint on it. The piece on the right was actually taken and painted. So they had very different lives but they both ended up back here on the missouri. The next few things that we have on display here today are, again, from the kamikaze attack on the missouri in the 1940s. These two artifacts are actually two pieces from something larger, and they were both recovered by two members of h division, which is the medical division on board the missouri. When captain callahan gave the order after the kamikaze attack to take the pilots body below deck in the dispensary, they brought the body down and prepared it for a funeral, and at some point, in that process, the Commanding Officer of that division, dr. Lamson, as well as a corpsman, came upon two fragments of the scarf that the pilot was wearing, and we have them here. One is quite small, and then this one, from the medical officer, is quite large. Now, they both bear the same pattern, a very faint floral pattern, in addition to the oil and sings and things that you see on them. They are two of our most fragile artifacts. In the coming year, as we redo our display for the 75th anniversary of that attack, one of these fragments will actually go on display to the general public, but for now, they are so fragile, we keep them in a climatecontrolled area. One of the most important set of artifacts that we have on board the ship are known as surrender cards. They were given to crew of the missouri who were on board for the surrender ceremony as a way to verify, for them to prove to everyone that they were on board. Each one is signed, you can look very closely. It is signed here by the fleet admiral, halsey and nimitz, and you also get the captain and Commanding Officer, murray, and you also get Douglas Macarthurs signature, and it bears the name of each individual crewmember. And we have only a handful of them. They are incredibly rare and incredibly important to the story of the surrender on board the missouri. The next two documents we have here actually show the timing for september 2, 1945. They recorded each person who comes on board, from nimitz to macarthur to the japanese officials, from when the ceremony in and when each person and ship leaves as well, and you will notice that the ceremony ends at 9 25, and the japanese officials have left the ceremony left the missouri by 9 29 in the morning. So we have already seen how detailed a battleships schedule and plan can be, and one thing we have are the plans of the day. They detail everything that will happen on board that day down to the exact times, and we have one from august 30, 1945, that bears a line written in it by the ships second in command, commander leon, that is incredibly telling and bears the weight of what was about to happen in just a few days time on board. It says we had the energy, ability, and strength to prepare for and put on a glorious show for the grand finale. If each of us does all we can on this last push then, when our grandchildren gather around and say grandpappy, what did you do in the great war, we will all answer simply, i was on the missouri. As it sits today, the missouri is bow to bow with uss arizona. The attack on pearl harbor was december 7, 1941. The final end to world war ii was that surrender ceremony september 2, 1945, aboard the missouri. So by having the missouri at pearl harbor, we have the bookends of world war ii for the United States, the beginning on the arizona and the end on the missouri. The uss missouris 16inch guns pointed symbolically over that ship. She is able to watch over those soldiers forever entombed on in the arizonas whole. Hull. You can watch this and other programs on the histories of communities across the country at cspan. Org citiestour. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. 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