The Theater Of War

Even though the war was over, General Douglas MacArthur was embroiled in one final complex campaign. Japan’s public surrender ceremony was a momentous occasion that required flawless execution. The whole world would be watching.

The September 2, 1945, ceremony aboard the 45,000-ton battleship USS Missouri was a logistical nightmare for MacArthur’s staff and the ship’s crew. Men scrubbed the warship white-glove spotless. Hard-boiled combat leaders played the role of exasperated headmasters, fretting over the appearance, placement, and proper behavior of thousands of marines and sailors scheduled to be in attendance. The operation involved hundreds of documents, dignitaries, and delegates, not to mention the precise coordination of four U.S. destroyers deployed as water taxis for shuttling VIPs to the Missouri. On top of that, America’s fighting forces had to attend to the needs of 225 news correspondents and 75 photographers.

A mahogany table, provided by the British, was clearly too small for the leather and gold portfolios holding the surrender documents. Sailors improvised by quickly unbolting a larger substitute from the deck of a mess hall and covering it with a not-so-clean green tablecloth.

One of the Japanese representatives, Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, had a wooden leg. Worried that his slow gait might interfere with the occasion’s precise timing, officers ordered a sailor to limp the approach with a sawed-off broom handle in order to simulate Shigemitsu’s ponderous strides to the veranda deck. Planners stood by, stopwatches in hand. And then there was the business with a flag. Japan’s surrender would take place in Tokyo Bay but miles south of the city of Tokyo. The Missouri’s location was chosen because at that very spot in 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry had come ashore for the first time, when he had forced Japan to sign a treaty opening ports to U.S. merchant ships. MacArthur had Perry’s flag flown in from the collection of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. The 31-star ensign, under glass, was mounted backward to be properly displayed on the Missouri’s starboard side bulkhead.

Next to MacArthur’s sprawling pageant, a royal wedding would have looked like a middle-school play.

By contrast, Germany’s surrender to Allied forces nearly four months before had taken place in a small dimly lit French schoolhouse, in the middle of the night. General Dwight D. Eisenhower expressly discouraged a “Hollywood show.” He didn’t even attend.

Final Mission: Staging Japan’s Surrender | Air & Space Magazine

This gives the game away how Wars are staged or parts of them are. I don't believe nobody dies or gets hurt in wars but there is a lot of staging going on. I mean why make anything about death and destruction staged like this Japan surrender article references? War is supposed to be sad because people are getting killed or hurt. Nothing should be staged for cameras. The negativity associated with war and fighting shouldn't involve staging if we're to believe that killing is what takes place. When I see stuff like this, I can't help but question. How much of war is staged? How much of war battles are staged? The theater of war is said for a reason because there is theater involved.