General MacArthur arrived at Atusgi Air Base on the 30th of August, the strangest month in the strangest year in human affairs to that date. I used to stay at Atsugi periodically and marveled at the revetments of old gray concrete that protected Saburo Sakai’s Zero fighters still ring the ends of the field.
 
They say there is much more still below in twelve great caverns carved out by the industrious Japanese, but it is too dangerous to go down there even after all these years, since traps were set with deadly efficiency, and now all those who set them are gone.
 
By the 2nd of September, the Allied Fleet was in Tokyo Bay to take the surrender.
 

(Surrender and fly-over. Photo montage courtesy University of Nebraska based on official USN Navy Photos)
 
Being so junior at the time, Mac stayed behind on Guam when Nimitz and four of his officers went to attend. He was there two days later, on a courier run, dispatched by his boss Captain Eddie Layton on an improvised and probably bogus mission to have an see what they had accomplished.
 
He landed in a seaplane next to a tender moored in the Sagami-wan in the late afternoon, and a jeep took him to Yokohama where MacArthur’s staff was preparing the Occupation. For perhaps the only time in history, there was no traffic on Route 16 north from Yokosuka to Yokohama. There were crowds of Japanese on both sides of the road, looking at the jeep impassively as it passed.
 
He arrived in the dark, and handed over his briefcase. By the time he got back to Yoko, there was only time to trade a bottle of Three Feathers Whiskey from the wine-mess on Guam to a young Marine for one of three remaining battle flags liberated by the Marines from the only Japanese ship that was still in the harbor, the heavy cruiser IJN Nagato.
 
Then it was on a motor-whaleboat to the seaplane tender for the flight in the morning.
 

(Tokyo at Peace. US Air Force photo)
 
“After we lifted out of the gray waters of the bay, the pilot did two long circles around the blasted capital before heading southeast for Guam. All the wooden buildings were ash, and only a few buildings stood in lonely isolation near the Imperial Palace. You could smell it.”
 
“So, you got back to Guam and what was it like, Sir? Having it over and done with such abruptness? It must have been surreal. When did you go home?”
 
“We were told we were to clean out our desks. We were flying on the Staff C-54 back to Pearl, direct, with a brief stop for fuel at Kwajalein Atoll.”
 
“You must have accumulated enough points to be among the first to go home, back to CONUS, the Land of the Big PX,” I said.
 
Mac dabbed his lips with one of the snowy white Willow napkins. “Well, I did have a lot of points. More than most. But that is another story,” he said. I waved to the waitress, suddenly realizing I needed another napkin and either a brandy or a cup of coffee.
 
Or more likely, all three.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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