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A story about the Japanese surrender aboard the Missouri, 75 years ago today, as relayed by my Dad, Lt. (Jg) Kenneth Sanger, who is about to turn 97. Dad was the fighter director on a destroyer, and was in the thick of the battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. A thread:
Ahead of the surrender, Dad had to choose between two conflicting orders – one by General Douglas McArthur instructing the fleet to allow Japanese offficials to fly to the Tokyo, and another from his captain, ordering him to blow them out of the sky. His account, edited:
“I relieved the watch and CIC, the combat information center. As was routine I just read all the dispatches that had come in since the previous watch. And one of them was a dispatch from General MacArthur’s headquarters in the Philippines saying that if we intercepted any...
...Japanese transport planes that were flying a red pennant from the tail of the fuselage that we were to let the planes through, I presume because they were flying the Japanese generals from China to Japan to receive the surrender. Anyway, we were to let this plane through....
And about 10 minutes after I had read these dispatch, we had picked up a bogie, an unidentified aircraft, on that course, and I had 16 marines in Corsairs – they were marvelous pilots – and dispatched one division of these 16 planes, which would have included four...
“...planes including the flight leader. Marines being what they were all 16 marines went out to this intercept, and we intercepted this plane, which of the type which was mentioned in the MacArthur dispatch. And it was flying a red pennant from the fuselage...
“And I ordered them not to fire, unless told to do so.
Grudgingly, the flight leader acknowledged the order. And I got on the squawk box and called the bridge and told them what I had done. And our commanding officer said, “Shoot the son-of-a-bitch down, Sanger.”....
Grudgingly, the flight leader acknowledged the order. And I got on the squawk box and called the bridge and told them what I had done. And our commanding officer said, “Shoot the son-of-a-bitch down, Sanger.”....
Dad debated this in his mind, while the planes were in air. In the end,
“I returned the planes to us without firing. I guess I made the snap judgement that I would rather be court-martialed by my commanding officer than by Gen. MacArthur. So the plane went through as intended.”
“I returned the planes to us without firing. I guess I made the snap judgement that I would rather be court-martialed by my commanding officer than by Gen. MacArthur. So the plane went through as intended.”
I’ve never been able to determine who was on the Japanese plane. MacArthur’s orders didn’t say, of course. But when I was Tokyo bureau chief for the Times, my office looked out toward the Bay, and I often thought of the story.
