Talk:Japanese Instrument of Surrender

Text

 * Japanese_Instrument_of_Surrender_(1945). The original text copied and pasted in. Secretlondon 11:34, Oct 5, 2003 (UTC)
 * Delete. -- BCorr ¤ &#1041;&#1088;&#1072;&#1081;&#1077;&#1085; 13:58, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Save. This is historically significant.
 * Delete and replace with stub pointing to external site. Morwen 18:12, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Keep Raul654 04:56, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Delete unless replaced with a stub. Wikipedia is not a repository of source texts. -- Oliver P. 06:52, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Keep now it's no longer a stub or only source text. I've expanded this beyond stub status and resurrected the short full text for the benefit of readers of CD and print editions, who can't so easily follow links even if we come up with a way to provide them. Wikipedia isn't a mass source repository but that's a general principle, not a reason to exclude a modest number of particularly notable, unchanging source documents in articles about them. JamesDay 21:02, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

--Xplore
 * I think it should be kept, since it is the main body of this section. Repeatation is not always bad unless it is talking about unrelevent stuff.

The main article states : " Symbolically, the deck of the Missouri furnished just two American flags. One had flown over the White House on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. The other had flown the mast of Commodore Perry's ship when he had sailed into that same harbor nearly a century before to urge the opening of Japan's ports to foreign trade. "

However, Capitan Stuart Murray of the Missouri states this in the interview linked at the end of the article:

"At eight o’clock we had hoisted a clean set of colors at the mainmast and a clean Union Jack at the bow as we were at anchor, and I would like to add that these were just regular ship’s flags, GI issue, that we’d pulled out of the spares, nothing special about them, and they had never been used anywhere so far as we know, at least they were clean and we had probably gotten them in Guam in May. So there was nothing special about them. Some of the articles in the history say this was the same flag that was flown on the White House or the National Capitol on 7 December 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and at Casablanca, and so forth, also MacArthur took it up to Tokyo and flew it over his headquarters there. The only thing I can say is they were hard up for baloney, because it was nothing like that. It was just a plain ordinary GI-issue flag and a Union Jack. We turned them both in to the Naval Academy Museum when we got back to the East Coast in October.

The only special flag that was there was a flag which Commodore Perry had flown on his ship out in that same location 82 years before. It was flown out in its glass case from the Naval Academy Museum. An officer messenger brought it out. We put this hanging over the door of my cabin, facing forward, on the surrender deck so that everyone on the surrender deck could see it. It was facing the Japanese. This was a thirty-one-star flag, that’s all the states we had at that time."

Since the wording of the article seems to contradict this interview, the wording should be reworked.

Semyonkotko 09 May 2006

Done. Richard75 17:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Year
I don't see the need to specify the year. When else did Japan ever surrender? --Jiang 01:57, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * Never too soon to start planning for the next one :) --Raul654 02:13, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Other langs
Curious--are there no other language versions? ~ Dpr 17:34, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
 * On the page about George H Kerr it states not only that there were other language versions, but that they differed! Can anyone confirm the Chinese version did not include the role of US? George Kerr was present in his official capacity as a civil affairs officer of the U.S. Navy Attache's Office to the Republic of China government in Chongqing. He ensured that the English version of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender did not exclude the official role of the U.S., unlike the Chinese translation. Jonpatterns (talk) 08:44, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Confusion???
There seems to be confusion in this and some related articles. Right now, the lead in this article says that the Instrument of Surrender was an armistice, which doesn't seem correct. I think that the plain meaning of "instrument" is the official document which is signed. This article discusses the document, but also other aspects.

There are closely related articles on Victory over Japan Day and Surrender of Japan, plus a less closely related one on Occupied Japan. I'm thinking that some copy editing and clarification might be needed for all of them.

There might also need to be an article about the famous surrender ceremony itself, held in Tokyo Bay aboard the battleship Missouri. I think of that ceremony as an event that more or less stands on its own, but is closely related to the topics mentioned above.

What brings this to my mind is the many articles about the U.S. Navy ships that were also present in Tokyo Bay. Right now, they are referred to as having been present at the Instrument of Surrender, which, if the Instrument is a document, is kind of off the mark.

What seems to be needed is a coordination of all these Japan-at-the-end-of-WWII articles, done by someone who has knowledge of the subject matter and can do the necessary writing. I can do the latter, but I don't have much subject matter knowledge. Lou Sander 02:40, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Duplication?
The summary of the text is almost as long as the text itself. Is there a beneift in having the summary when the text is already in the article? Seems like filler to me.... CodeCarpenter 13:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree; I'm deleting the summary. -- Super Aardvark 20:32, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Unconditional!?
Funny to call it an unconditional surrender when there were conditions attached to it (for instance, that the emperor was to remain on the throne.) Aside from that, it did not even end the war, the USSR and Japan have yet to declare peace. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.28.153.73 (talk) 20:55, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Both countries?
"The Allied copy was presented in leather and gold lining with both countries' seals printed on the front..." What countries? ufossuck 21:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Differences between the two treaties error
It wasn't The Netherlands representative, C.E.L. Helfrich who signed on the wrong line but the Canadian Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave as is correctly stated in his article. You can see in the picture of the Japanese copy of the document that he signed on the line intented for the French representative leaving the Canada line empty. This forced all the others to sign one line below the intended one. I'm correcting. Lathrop1885 (talk) 13:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Location of the Document
The text states that the document was exhibited at the National Archive for a period of time. Where is the document stored now?Jaedglass (talk) 19:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have updated the locations of the documents in Washington DC and Tokyo. Limitedexpresstrain (talk) 10:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Question about Allies
I searched on google and everything but I cannot find the answer. My question is, What did the Axis call the allies during the war? It says "which four powers are hereafter referred to as the Allied Powers" in the Potsdam declaration. So what were the Allies called before that? Thanks for all your help.

66.231.194.154 (talk) 20:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Tokyo Bay is pretty big
Which part of the bay was the Missouri anchored at when the surrender document was signed? 11:36, 3 February 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.230.44.83 (talk)

Source of parchment
THe United News report of the signing of the document (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4DsCQUWkVw starting at 4:50) states "[the Surrender Documents] were printed by the Army on rare parchment found in a basement in ravaged Manilla."

To me, this is worthy of being included in the main text but I understand that others may have strong feelings on the matter.

What do people think? Rickedmo (talk) 18:10, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Worthwhile if we can find a better source than a contemporary newsreel. --Yaush (talk) 20:01, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

"six pens used by General MacArthur to sign the instrument"
Did Macarthur really sign with six different pens? One pen for "General", one for "Mac", and one for "Arthur", on each copy? Either this is poorly phrased or needs elaboration. jnestorius(talk) 09:41, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Where did it occur?
Suggest adding that to the article. Unless it is in there and I missed it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:01, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I found something at the USS Missouri article and copied it in. North8000 (talk) 23:18, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Bronze surrender plaque 129.222.32.164 (talk) 20:03, 15 April 2024 (UTC)