Signed on September 2, 1945 aboard the American battleship USS
Missouri in Tokyo Bay by Japanese and Allied leaders, the
instrument of surrender formally ended the war in the Pacific and
brought to a close one of the most cataclysmic engagements in
history, one that had cost the lives of millions. VJ-Victory over
Japan-Day had taken place two weeks or so earlier, in the wake of
the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the
entrance of the Soviet Union into the war. In the end, the
surrender itself fulfilled the commitment that Franklin Roosevelt
had made that it be "unconditional," as had been the case with Nazi
Germany in May, 1945. Though readily accepted as war policy at the
time, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945, popular support for
unconditional surrender wavered, particularly when the bloody
campaigns on Iwo Jima and Okinawa made clear the cost of military
victory against Japan. The ending of the war in Europe spurred
calls in Congress, particularly among anti-New Deal Republicans, to
shift the American economy to peacetime and bring home troops. Even
after the atomic bombs had been dropped, Japan continued to seek a
negotiated surrender, further complicating the debate. Though this
was the last time Americans would impose surrender unconditionally,
questions surrounding it continued at home through the 1950s and
1960s, when liberal and conservative views reversed, and
particularly in Vietnam and the definition of "peace with honor."
It remained controversial through the ceremonies surrounding the
50th anniversary and the Gulf War, when the subject revived. In
Unconditional, which publishes in time for the 75th anniversary of
the surrender, Bancroft Prize co-winner Marc Gallicchio offers a
narrative of the surrender in its historical moment, revealing how
and why the event unfolded as it did and the principle figures
behind it, including George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur, who
would effectively become the leader of Japan during the American
occupation. It also reveals how the policy underlying it remained
controversial at the time and in the decades following, shaping our
understanding of World War II.
General
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