Description:

World War II



Fantastic Japanese Surrender Naval Dispatch, Issued by MacArthur!


Single page typed Naval dispatch, 8" x 6.5", with two punch holes along top edge and bottom right corner tip neatly clipped. Header of [U.S.] Naval Communication Service, ADCOMDPHIBSPAC. Dated "17 Aug 45". Designated "Top Secret" and "Urgent", and includes the original large stamp of "TOP SECRET" in the lower area of the page. Issued by MacArthur. The telegram communique will be accompanied matted with a fantastic vintage black and white glossy photo of MacArthur signing and accepting the surrender document. Matted to a completed size of 20" x 14.5". Ex. J. John Fox (1905-1999) Intelligence Officer for the Amphibious Forces, via Auction (see below for his Biography)


 

A fantastic important Naval Dispatch, communicated by MacArthur during the height of the War against Japan during World War II. His telegram communicated the important message of Japan's surrender, and that MacArthur was designated the Supreme Commander for the Allied Forces. Shown in full below:

 

" Pursuant to Directive from the President of the United States and in Accordance with agreement among the governments of the United States, Chinese Republic, United Kingdom and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics I have been designated as the Supreme Commander for the Allied Forces...The channel of communications with the Japanese Imperial government and Japanese Imperial Headquarters will be through these Headquarters." Sent to Nimitz (CINCPAC), Wedemeyer (CG CHINA), Mountbatten (SACSEA), Deane (Mil Mission Moscow) plus WARCOS and PACFLT for general information."

There is contentious debate among scholars about why Japan surrendered in World War II. Some believe the Aug. 15, 1945, declaration was the result of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It’s possible that these finally pushed Emperor Hirohito (posthumously called Emperor Showa) to break the deadlock in the Supreme War Council and accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration for unconditional surrender issued by the Allied leaders on July 26, 1945. In that declaration, there was a promise of “prompt and utter destruction” if the armed forces of Japan didn’t surrender. The use of weapons of mass destruction causing the incineration of large swaths of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in quick succession backed up that threat, highlighting the futility of continuing the war. Emperor Hirohito’s intervention on the side of those favoring capitulation was crucial to winning over those hardliners who didn’t. In this narrative, the dawning of the nuclear age brought peace. It also allowed military leaders to save face, since they could claim that the war was not lost on the battlefield, and agree to surrender to spare the Japanese people from more suffering.


 

This meant abandoning ketsu-go, the strategy of fighting one last decisive battle intended to inflict so many casualties on a war-weary America that it would relax its demands for unconditional surrender and negotiate a peace. This would, at a minimum, safeguard the Emperor, and potentially preserve the armed forces and shield them from prosecution for war crimes. This strategy was affirmed in June 1945 as the gruesome and bloody Battle of Okinawa was winding down. Reinforcements had been transferred from Manchuria to bolster the defense of Kyushu where the U.S. was expected to attack next. In February 1945, Joseph Stalin met with Allied leaders in Yalta, promising to attack Japan three months after Germany’s surrender. He kept his promise, and Soviet troops invaded Manchuria in the wee hours of Aug. 9 before the Nagasaki bombing later that day. This came as a shock to Japanese leaders who had been trying throughout July that year to engage the Soviets as brokers in a peace deal with the Allies.


Soviet entry into the war was an alarming development for a military leadership that vowed to keep fighting to save the Emperor. The fate of the czar at the hands of communists, and prospects for a punitive Soviet occupation, influenced the calculus of surrender. The decisive Soviet invasion of 9 August is completely overshadowed by the Nagasaki attack that same day, yet many historians agree that it was the Soviet entry into the war that was the much bigger shock to the Japanese government than the Hiroshima bomb.

 

Biography:

J. John Fox (1905-1999) was born in Paterson, NJ, but grew up in and worked most of his adult life in Boston, MA. He attended Boston University, then enrolled in Boston University Law School. It was there he acquired the nickname “Just John” Fox, his reply to a professor’s question about his name. 


When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Fox enlisted in the Navy, despite being around 36 years old. Initially he served in the North Atlantic before being assigned to the amphibious forces in the Pacific Theater under Admiral Richmond “Kelly” Turner. Fox became an intelligence officer and was involved in the planning of the assaults on Kwajelein, the Marianas, Palau, Leyte, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In late 1945 he was also deeply involved in planning the invasion of Japan itself. Had the invasion occurred, he was to have been in charge of prisoner interrogation and captured documents. He was awarded the bronze star for his service in the Pacific Theater. Before being discharged in 1946, he helped in preparation of amphibious operations training materials at the Naval War College in Newport, RI. 


After his discharge, he returned to his legal practice in Boston. Governor Dever appointed him as an associate judge in 1952. He then became a probate judge in Norfolk Probate Court in 1960. He retired from the bench in 1973. 

In the 1960s Fox helped establish a public medical school in Massachusetts, a school that became the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In 1974, he co-sponsored, with David Bartley, the Bartley-Fox Law, the first of its kind, in Massachusetts. Bartley-Fox established stiff penalties for illegal possession of a firearm and committing a crime with an unlicensed firearm. Although the law generated controversy, as does all firearms-related legislation, this one did not restrict ownership of firearms, it only required them to be registered. 

Judge Fox lived for another quarter century after retirement, passing away on October 4, 1999 at the age of 96. This piece was brought back from the Pacific by Fox following World War II, and descended in his family.


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