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8 Short Paragraphs Signed Aboard USS Missouri Ended WWII

Jamie Dettmer

   It was quite a sight when the World War II-era battleship the USS
   Missouri fired her guns in anger for the final time.

   First there were billows of smoke so dense that we could still see them
   against the darkness of the night-sky from a nearby warship, Britain's
   HMS Gloucester. Then huge orange fireballs spat from her 16-inch guns
   which were targeting Iraqi positions along the Kuwaiti coast.

   Sharp cracks and thunderous booms followed even before the smoke had
   dissipated -- so ear-piercing that I ripped my neck jerking away from
   the roar. Then a few seconds later, we could feel the thud of the
   Missouri's shells landing on targets twenty miles away.

   The Missouri, a veteran from the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, has a
   storied history. But for many people the Missouri's greatest claim to
   fame is hosting the signing of the formal surrender in 1945 by the
   Japanese 75 years ago Wednesday, as the 45,000-ton battleship lay at
   anchor in Tokyo Bay.

   V-J Day, an abbreviation for Victory over Japan Day, had been
   celebrated almost a month earlier on August 15 by many Allied nations,
   the day the Japanese government announced surrender. The U.S. marks V-J
   Day on September 2, the day three-quarters-of-a-century ago when
   Japan's foreign minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, and Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu
   signed their names to the Instrument of Surrender, which had been
   approved by U.S. President Harry Truman.

   It set out in eight short paragraphs Japan's unconditional
   capitulation.

   The second paragraph read: "We hereby proclaim the unconditional
   surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General
   Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces
   under Japanese control wherever situated." U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur
   also signed, as did others for the Allied forces.

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