Japan

The Imperial Japanese Surrender in Tokyo Bay, Sept. 2, 1945…Plus 77 Years

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Since 2010 Chicagoboyz has been commemorating the anniversaries every August or September, the two atomic bombings, the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration by Imperial Japan and the official Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay. This year’s commemoration focuses on September 2, 1945, when General Douglas MacArthur as “Supreme Commander Allied Powers” or “SCAP” officiated the Tokyo Bay surrender ceremony with Imperial Japan that ended World War 2.

There are several films of this event. There was the official one MacArthur’s Signal Corps camera crew recorded.  There is a film from war correspondent William Courtenay that became a newsreel and  there was a color film taken by Commander George F. Kosco of the US Navy.

The most complete version of the ceremony I’ve found was the Newsreel restored by Critical Past in black and white immediately below.  It is more historically relevant for me as it includes visuals of all the Allied national military & Imperial Japanese signers of the document of surrender. It runs almost nine minutes.

The National Archives has a less restored version of the same newsreel.

The Naval History & Heritage Command has the color film taken by Commander George F. Kosco of the US Navy of the surrender ceremony.

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Nagasaki: The Atomic Bombing Mission That Almost Wasn’t, plus 76 years

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This column is adapted from a recent e-mail from Ryan Crierie that is reposted here with his permission.   It is the tale of how almost everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, on the day Nagasaki was nuked.

This is a U.S. military map of the radioactive fall out caused by the nuclear strike on Nagasaki.  See the pattern of black dots upper right.

And make sure to read through the P.S.  There is a historical “What If” stinger waiting for you there.

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The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, Plus 76 years

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Seventy five years ago today the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy gun-type atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people died, sources vary.

It has been a now 11 year and counting tradition of the Chicagoboyz blog to commemorate this bombing and the events immediately after.  Today’s post will speak of the anniversary and share forgotten history from before & after the event.  Per the wikipedia article:

The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces and Captain Robert A. Lewis. It exploded with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT (63 TJ) and caused widespread death and destruction throughout the city.

This act set in motion historical events that lead to the surrender of Imperial Japan, the start of the nuclear age and the Cold War with the Soviet Union that ended in 1989.  Yet for all of the event’s importance we, seventy six years, on know less about it’s real history than the myths that arose in Cold War propaganda afterwards.

Enola Gay: The Story of the Most Historic Boeing B-29

The fully restored in 2003 B-29 Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

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The Imperial Japanese Surrender in Tokyo Bay, Sept. 2, 1945…Plus 75 Years

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On September 2, 1945, the surrender ceremony for Imperial Japan occurred in Tokyo  Bay with General Douglas MacArthur officiating.

There are several films of this event. There was the official one MacArthur’s Signal Corps camera crew recorded.  There is a film from war correspondent William Courtenay and a finally a film taken by Commander George F. Kosco of the US Navy.

I have included in this post several versions of each of these films in black and white and color below.

The end of this ceremony marked the close of the most destructive war in human history whose 75th anniversary passed today.

 

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