Posted on 09/18/2007 4:32:57 PM PDT by indcons
On this day in 1945, Gen. Douglas MacArthur moves his command headquarters to Tokyo, as he prepares for his new role as architect of a democratic and capitalist postwar Japan.
Japan had had a long history of its foreign policy being dominated by the military, as evidenced by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye's failed attempts to reform his government and being virtually pushed out of power by career army officer Hideki Tojo. MacArthur was given the task of overseeing the regeneration of a Japan shorn of its imperial past. As humiliating as it would be for the defeated Japanese, the supreme allied commander in the South Pacific would lay the groundwork for Japan's rebirth as an economic global superpower.
The career of Douglas MacArthur is composed of one striking achievement after another. When he graduated from West Point, only one other person, Robert E. Lee, had exceeded MacArthur's performance, in terms of awards and average, in the institution's history. His performance in World War I, during combat in France, won him decorations for valor and resulted in his becoming the youngest general in the Army at the time. He retired from the Army in 1934, only to be appointed head of the Philippine Army by its president (the Philippines had U.S. Commonwealth status at the time).
When World War II broke out, MacArthur was called back to active service-as commanding general of the U.S. Army in the Far East. Because of MacArthur's time in the Far East, and the awesome respect he commanded in the Philippines, his judgment had become somewhat distorted and his vision of U.S. military strategy as a whole myopic. He was convinced that he could defeat Japan if it invaded the Philippines. In the long term, he was correct. But in the short term, the United States suffered disastrous defeats at Bataan and Corregidor. By the time U.S. forces were forced to surrender, he had already shipped out, on orders from President Roosevelt. As he left, he uttered his immortal line, "I shall return."
Refusing to admit defeat, MacArthur was awarded supreme command in the Southwest Pacific, capturing New Guinea from the Japanese with an innovative "leap frog" strategy. True to his word, he returned to the Philippines in October 1944. With the help of the U.S. Navy, which succeeded in destroying the Japanese fleet, leaving the Japanese garrisons on the islands without reinforcements, the Army defeated adamantine Japanese resistance. On March 3, 1945, MacArthur handed control of the Philippine capital back to its president.
On September 2, 1945, MacArthur signed the instrument of surrender on behalf of the victorious Allies, aboard the USS Missouri, docked in Tokyo Bay. But the man who oversaw Japan's defeat was about to put it on the road to its own kind of victory.
Then they muzzled MacArthur like they did Patton.
A few interesting notes about the MacArthur administration of Japan.
1) MacArthur created the Japanese constitution with an eye to unbridled success in the future. This act of benevolence was not duplicated until J. Paul Bremer did it one better in the plan to rebuild Iraq, leaving them with the potential for amazing growth in the future, if they are capable of it.
In both cases, idealized capitalistic economic structures were put in place at a high level that had been tried and tested in other nations, and were found to be efficient. However, because of advances in the study of economics since World War II, Bremer’s model may do for Iraq what MacArthur’s did for Japan, but twice as fast. This portends that in the future, Iraq will become a major economic powerhouse in the world.
2) MacArthur made several mistakes, but discovered they were mistakes and rapidly corrected them. One such was the modernization of Japanese medicine to modern western standards. He intended to start to do this by outlawing traditional Japanese medicine.
Unfortunately, a large part of Japanese traditional medicine was therapeutic massage, which was about the only skill that a blind person could make a living at in Japan at the time. In response, thousands of these Shiatsu practitioners announced that they would commit mass suicide instead of starving to death. Fortunately, MacArthur quickly rescinded this order, which is why we have Shiatsu today.
3) As part of his program, to reassure those who feared a reemerging Japan, MacArthur also included ultra-pacifistic parts to their constitution. And while this implied expensive military protection provided by the US, not having to commit those resources to defense for many years allowed Japan’s recovery to proceed at an even faster pace.
It is a good question as to whether this was necessary, as the Japanese public mood after the war was dramatically pacifistic and anti-war already. Their anti-war WWII themed movies produced in the next decade, such as ‘The Burmese Harp’ and the astounding ‘Fires on the Plain’, are testimony to their popular revulsion to war.
“On September 2, 1945, MacArthur signed the instrument of surrender on behalf of the victorious Allies, aboard the USS Missouri, docked in Tokyo Bay.”
That sentence is factually incorrect. The USS Missouri was anchored in Tokyo Bay and not tied to a pier, which is what the word “docked” means. The Japanese delegation came alongside in a motor launch.
Great points there - I learned something new.
More here in regards to Korea.
http://www.army.mil/cmh/books/pd-c-20.htm
Thanks
"Often times I wonder how the historians of the future will look back on the events that led up to World War III and find themselves perplexed at how the "greatest generation" could have given birth to the what could quite conceivably come to be known as the "worst generation", a generation that chose disgrace over danger.
Before going into the consequences or the reasons for our inability to act decisively against Islamic totalitarianism, imagine for just a moment that in the aftermath the attacks of 11 September that the United States had a precedent for the challenges ahead that we faced.
Interestingly enough, that precedent that can be found in a telegram sent from Secretary of State James F. Byrnes in 1945, transmitting the radio remarks of John Carter Vincent, head of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs, to General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander of the Allied Powers in Japan.
The telegram reads:
"QUOTE -- Shintoism, insofar as it is a religion of individual Japanese, is not to be interfered with. Shintoism, however insofar as it is directed by the Japanese Government, and is a measure enforced from above by the government, is to be done away with. People will not be taxed to support National Shinto and there will be no place for Shintoism in the schools. Shintoism as a state religion -- National Shinto, that is -- will go. Our policy on this goes beyond Shinto. The dissemination of Japanese militaristic and ultra-nationalistic ideology in any form will be completely suppressed. And the Japanese Government will be required to cease financial and other support of Shinto establishments -- UNQUOTE."
continued...
While reading this post it occurred to me that a big difference in the left and the right is that liberals lack a fundamental sense of American history. Japan’s transformation was incredibly swift, far reaching and permanent. Why millions of liberals believe we are incapable of helping Iraqis create a stable democracy in the Middle East when it was done less than 70 years ago in Japan and Europe is baffling. Since Democrats refuse intelligent debate, only vitriolic blather, drawing historical parallels with them is impossible.
This day in History was also the start of WW II, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
1931 !
Thanks indcons.
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