Naval History Magazine
Admiral William Halsey confers with Major General Alexander A.
Vandegrift, USMC, at South Pacific Force headquarters, Noumea, New Caledonia,
in January 1943.
(U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE PHOTO ARCHIVE)
Under the Radar:
Admiral Halsey at the End of World War II (Part II)
Would the surrender hold?
By Rolland Kidder
October 2022
Naval History Magazine
ARTICLE
Messages began to flow between Halsey, MacArthur, and the
U.S. Army after the Japanese surrender on 15 August and MacArthur’s appointment
as Supreme Commander. An interesting message was sent on 19 August, this time
from Halsey to General Robert Lawrence Eichelberger, 8th Army Commander. In it,
Halsey laid out two plans whereby troops “will initially occupy only
ATSUGI-YOKOSUKA and area southward . . .” using Marine landing forces. “Both
plans permit isolating and disarming enemy forces . . . after fleet landing
forces take over security duty at YOKOSUKA air and naval bases.”1
Two days later, on 21 August, MacArthur acknowledged his
official approval of the initial landings proposed by Halsey, and sent to
Halsey the following order:
In
view of the fact that HAYAMA, ZUSHI, and KAMAKURA have been selected as
headquarters area of the Supreme Allied Commander and advice given by Japanese
emissaries that the initial landings would be in restricted areas, it is
considered advisable to put into effect the general provision of your Plan 2,
with not to exceed what is normally considered to be a regimental combat team.
. . . Landing force as limited above is acceptable. Brigadier General Clement
[Marines] will report by radio upon my assumption of command. . . . His force
will land in the vicinity of YOKOSUKA and occupy the general areas:
URAGA-KUBIRI-FUMAKOSHI [FUNAKOSHI]-YOKOSUKA,++ all inclusive. . . . Airfield for
11th Airborne and H Hour will designated by SCAP. . . . The emissaries were
directed to have the area evacuated of Japanese troops but we must be alert to
guard against surprise.2
Halsey moved quickly upon receiving those orders from
MacArthur. Eighteen hours later, William F. Halsey, Commander 3rd Fleet,
announced that he had complied with MacArthur’s directive:
“Japan
has surrendered. . . . Army Forces have seized ATSUGI airfield and CINCAFPAC
[MacArthur] Advance Headquarters are established there. CTF 31 Forces hold
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE and airfields and 3rd Fleet forces are disposed in the
TOKYO BAY-SAGAMI WAN AREA. 3rd Fleet Air is patrolling HONSHU and the TOKYO BAY
AREA. KANOYA airfield KYUSCHU is held by our occupation forces . . .” 3
The rest of Halsey’s message outlined how the timing of
additional landings would occur and directed the fleet to assist 8th Army and
other forces in establishing the occupation. Substantial detail is given for
the activities of COM3RDPHIB (Commander 3rd Amphibious Force, Vice Admiral T.S.
Wilkinson.) But the message is unequivocal—on 22 August 1945 (Japan time,)
“Bull” Halsey had men ashore at Atsugi and Yokosuka in Honshu and at Kanoya on
Kyushu Island.
In another message from Halsey (3rd Fleet) to Eichelberger
(8th Army) late on 21 August, Halsey added more detail, writing that that he
“will execute my plan 2 including occupation of forts vicinity FUTTSU SAKE
which I will arrange to have vacated when I am met by emissary off OSHIMA.”4 This
communication was not date-specific as to the FUTTU SAKE operation, but it
likely happened on or about 22 August when the other initial landings occurred.
On 28 August, Halsey’s fleet finally would link up with a Japanese destroyer to
escort the major ships of the 3rd Fleet, which would participate in the Tokyo
Bay surrender ceremony. Since FUTTU SAKE is a promontory flanking the eastern
entrance to Tokyo Bay, it would make sense to have it secured.
Though not specifically stated, it is reasonable to assume
from these messages that one purpose in deploying these initial landing parties
was to test the validity and seriousness of the Japanese surrender. Would the
surrender hold? It was known that there were elements, especially in the
Japanese Army, that were opposed to the surrender. Would Japanese soldiers,
sailors, and airmen obey their Emperor and lay down their arms? Fortunately,
for those Americans who were in these relatively small initial landing forces,
they did.
Halsey followed up his general Op-Order on 22 August with
his “Air Plan, Annex D my Op-plan 11–45.” The last paragraph could have
relevance to what was being done by one Ensign F. Haydn Williams. It reads:
“Para. 3. Garrison. (A) MAG 31, (B) NATS landplane unit. 1. garrison squadrons
and ground echelons will be assigned appropriate tasks when installed.”5 This
paragraph seems almost purposely vague, though it also seems likely that these
units had been deployed that day with the initial landing force at Atsugi. Williams
was a part of the Navy support effort to establish a Naval Air Transport System
(NATS) base in Japan. This unit eventually would be sent to the Kisarazu
airfield on the east side of Tokyo Bay to establish the NATS service base for
the Tokyo Bay area.
In the “Nimitz Only” section of messages, one dated 21
August makes specific reference to a “Naval aviation member advance party.” It
was sent directly from KINCAID (7th Fleet) to NIMITZ in Guam and seems to be a
“back-channel” communication advising CINCPAC of developments with this early
advance party going into Japan:
Captain
Carroll B. Jones, Naval aviation member advance party to TOKYO was informed by
GHQ [MacArthur headquarters] today that he would not be allowed to inspect and
obtain 1st hand information on airfield and facilities YOKOSUKA. Party will be
kept together vicinity ATSUGI to prevent possible incident. All available
information field and facilities YOKOSUKA is to be supplied to advance party by
Japanese.6
Either the naval aviation “advance party” was in Atsugi or
about to go there, but MacArthur did not want them at Yokosuka. It would seem
likely that this “naval aviation advance unit” is the outfit to which Ensign
Williams was assigned.
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Admiral William Halsey confer
on board USS Curtiss (AV-4) at Button Naval Base, Espiritu
Santo, New Hebrides, 20 January 1943.
(Naval History and Heritage Command)
Ten days later, a message from Nimitz to Halsey indicated
that one of Nimitz’s reasons for opening an airfield in Japan was to establish
an airport that could handle the large land-based operations of NATS. Nimitz
now was flying his flag on board the USS South Dakota (BB-57)
in Tokyo Bay. He had landed there by flying boat on 29 August—a day before
MacArthur would land at Atsugi. (The Navy had beaten the Army to Japan!) Yet,
now, a day before the surrender ceremony that would be staged on board the
USS Missouri (BB-63), Nimitz wanted to know where he could go
after the surrender ceremony to pick up his return flight to Guam in the
faster, more spacious four-engine transport—the Skymaster, which the Navy
called an R5D and which the Army termed as a C-54. He wrote to Halsey: “Early
report on adequacy of YOKOSUKA airfield for R5D operations desired.”7 Nimitz did not want the Navy flying in and out of MacArthur’s
turf at Atsugi—nor did MacArthur, it seems, want a big Naval Air Station either
there or at Yokosuka nearer the Tokyo area where he would be. This short
communication also reinforced the fact that, at the time, Nimitz also was not
totally in the loop as to what and where all the Navy assets now were in the
new Japan under MacArthur. He would be picking up his R5D at Kisarazu, not
Yokosuka.
It appears that on the same day (Japan time) that Nimitz
sent this message, General MacArthur made a move to establish a naval air
station that could accommodate large planes like the R5D: “The
Reconnaissance Troop of the 11th Airborne Division made a subsidiary airlift
operation on 1 September, flying from Atsugi to Kisarazu Airfield. This
airfield was occupied without incident.”8 According to F. Haydn Williams’ conversations with me,
he was on this airlift operation that opened Kisarazu. He said that everyone
riding in the planes involved was a bit scared. They had no idea whether they
would meet friend of foe when they arrived at the Kisarazu Airfield. As it
worked out, there was no problem, and the field was occupied without
opposition.
It is also interesting to note that in all the U.S. naval
air attacks on Japan in July–August 1945 cited in the Gray Book,
there is no mention of Kisarazu. Could it have been on a no-hit target list? It
is cited by MacArthur in Reports as being the airport from
which the Japanese emissaries left for Manila on 19 August.9 Perhaps
the Kisarazu airfield had been spared destruction because a decision had been
made to leave at least one airport in the Tokyo Bay region untouched so that
air traffic to and from the country was still possible at war’s end. Whatever
the reason, on the east side of Tokyo Bay, Admiral Nimitz and the Navy now had
an airfield of their own that could handle large land-based aircraft..
One is reminded of the adage that “all politics is local,”
meaning, in this instance, that people tend to rely on people they already know
and trust. MacArthur had gained the confidence of Navy men like Admiral
Sherman, and men like Kincaid (7th Fleet,) Wilkinson (3rd Amphibious Force),
and Brigadier General William Clement, who had been with him during the
campaigns in the Southwest Pacific, New Guinea, and the Philippines. But the
key to pulling the Navy assets together during the two weeks leading up to the
2 September surrender signing in Tokyo Bay had been another Navy friend, one
William F. “Bull” Halsey.
Halsey and MacArthur
MacArthur and Halsey were close. On a least three occasions
during fighting in the South Pacific, Halsey had met with General MacArthur at
his headquarters in Brisbane, Australia. The occasions cited here are all taken
from Halsey’s autobiography, Admiral Halsey’s Story. In this book,
Halsey portrayed himself as a rather “down-to-earth” folksy guy who did not put
on a lot of “airs” or always needed to be catered to—juxtaposed with
MacArthur’s reputation of being quite aloof and overbearing. Yet those
differences did not disrupt their first or any subsequent meetings.
In early April 1943, after the battle for Guadalcanal had
ended, Halsey went to Brisbane to discuss with MacArthur follow-up operations
in the Solomon Islands and the Southwest Pacific area. According to Halsey’s
account, recognition of a common interest broke the ice at the first meeting
—Halsey’s and MacArthur’s fathers had been friends 40 years earlier in the
Philippines. “Five minutes after I reported, I felt as if we were lifelong
friends,” Halsey wrote. By the end of the meeting, “[MacArthur] accepted my
plan for the New Georgia operation.”10 It was obvious that MacArthur liked Halsey’s fighting
spirit, and they generally agreed on joint Navy/Army strategies as they related
to fighting the Japanese in that part of the world.
There was also another, more visceral connection: their
backgrounds in the military. As Thomas Hughes noted in his book Admiral
Bill Halsey: A Naval Life, “Halsey never spent a day outside the cocoon of
the American military, a trait he shared with only General MacArthur out of all
officers in the nation’s history.”11 The lives of both men had been carved by being the
sons of men who spent their entire lives within the confines of the Army or
Navy.
The chemistry between MacArthur and Halsey was also
complemented by familiarity between their staffs. As Halsey observed, “There
was an unusual bond between our staffs: My Chief of Staff’s son, Captain Robert
B. Carney, Jr., had married MacArthur’s Chief of Staff’s daughter, Miss Natalie
Sutherland.”12 There is nothing better for command relationships in
the military than when competing staffs can get along.
Later, in December 1943, prior to going to Pearl Harbor to
see Admiral Nimitz and then on to Washington to meet with Admiral King, Halsey
would go back to Brisbane to, as he wrote, “Take leave of General MacArthur.”13 This is
Navy language used in describing when one is parting from the command of a
superior officer. Halsey knew who was “the boss” in this relationship.
Reflecting the camaraderie of the meeting, MacArthur made a pitch to Halsey for
him to become the Navy commander in the Southwest Pacific area: “Bill, if you
come with me, I’ll make you a greater man than Nelson ever dreamed of being.”
Halsey retorted: “I said that I was flattered, but in no position to commit myself;
however, I’d certainly tell King and Nimitz about his offer. I did and that’s
the last I heard of it.”14 At the same meeting, Halsey and MacArthur both talked
about the idea of “island hopping” and leaving Japanese fortress islands like
Rabaul to “wither on the vine,” a concept that met with growing support both in
the Pacific theater of the war and in Washington.
February 1944
Halsey then described a third meeting with MacArthur, which
took place in February 1944. It was after an island called Manus had been taken
and a dispute developed about who would control it—Army or Navy. Nimitz had
sent a dispatch to Admiral King in Washington and copied MacArthur on it
recommending that Halsey’s area of operations be extended to include Manus.
When he got to the meeting, Halsey described MacArthur as
“fighting to keep his temper” and that MacArthur “went on for a quarter of an
hour” about it and suggested that only the 7th Fleet and British units be
allowed in the port until “the jurisdiction of Manus” was decided. When given
the chance, Halsey responded that in his view such an action “would hamper the
war effort” and that MacArthur should not consider it:
His
staff gasped. I imagine they never expected anyone would address him in those
terms this side of the Judgment Throne. I told him that command of Manus didn’t
matter a whit to me. What did matter was the quick construction of the base.
Kenney, or an Australian or an enlisted cavalryman could boss it for all I
cared, as long as it was ready to handle the Fleet when we moved up New Guinea
and on toward the Philippines.” The next day, MacArthur said: “You win, Bill!”
Then he turned to Sutherland and said: “Dick, go ahead with
the job.”15 Before leaving the South Pacific for the last time, Halsey
would be granted the Army’s Distinguished Service Medal at a ceremony in
Noumea, New Caledonia, in June 1944.16 He was now a recognized MacArthur man.
August to September 1944
When Halsey returned to the Pacific after a break, he would
meet again on MacArthur’s turf at Hollandia, New Guinea, in September 1944.
Though Halsey describes it as a meeting with “MacArthur’s staff,” it is hard to
believe that General MacArthur would have missed the meeting.17 Halsey
and MacArthur were planning one more campaign together before they would join
hands in Japan at the end of the war—Halsey’s fleet would be supporting the
Army landings at Leyte in the Philippines and would be attacking Japanese
targets throughout the Philippine archipelago.
Halsey would again return to the United States in the winter
and spring of 1945. By the time he returned to the Pacific, MacArthur had
finished the Philippine operation and was living and headquartered in Manila.
Halsey and MacArthur had lunch together there on 14 June 1945.18 Undoubtedly,
much was discussed—including the pending end of the war. Halsey had met with
President Roosevelt for an hour discussing “subjects so secret that I would
have preferred not to know them” while he had been in Washington.19 One
must assume that MacArthur’s role and the need for the Army and Navy to work
toward a common end in finishing the war also must have been a part of that
conversation.
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur signs the Instrument
of Surrender, as Supreme Allied Commander, on board the USS Missouri (BB-63),
2 September 1945. (Naval History and
Heritage Command)
Following that lunch in Manila, Halsey and MacArthur next
would meet at the formal surrender ceremony on 2 September in Tokyo Bay on
board the Missouri. But two weeks before that, after the Japanese
had announced they were quitting the fight and the announcement that MacArthur
was now Supreme Commander, the two men again would be closely allied. Under
Halsey, the 3rd Fleet would become MacArthur’s primary military resource in the
area surrounding Japan’s main islands. Under MacArthur’s orders, Halsey would
implement the first initial landings and occupation of U.S. military forces on
the Japanese main islands on 22 August.
Halsey tiptoed around what happened during that time in his
memoir. He deflected the fact that American soldiers arriving at Atsugi on 28
August were met with a sign reading: “Welcome to the U.S. Army from the 3rd
Fleet!” 20 Halsey cryptically attributed that to a renegade
fighter pilot from one of the carriers who landed without permission at the
Atsugi airfield and had the sign put up. We know now from his message of
21–2327 that the sign most likely had been put up by the landing force
installed there by Halsey himself on 22 August . The fact that Halsey dodged
the question is indicative to me that he—and others now reporting to the new
Supreme Commander—would defer to MacArthur for whatever he wanted the official
version of the times and dates of the occupation of Japan to be.
Later, on 29 August, Halsey would initiate the first
liberation of American prisoners of war in the Tokyo Bay area. This effort
started earlier than MacArthur had wanted, but as Halsey described it: “As with
the landings, circumstances forced us to jump the gun.”21 A
special Navy task force had been organized for this effort, and one of the
early evacuees was Major Greg “Pappy” Boyington, a highly decorated Marine
pilot who had been thought killed in an air battle over Rabaul. Halsey’s
Administrative Flag Secretary, Commander Harold Stassen, had accompanied the
Task Force when it liberated the Omori Prison Camp where Boyington was held
captive.
Halsey had indeed jumped the gun on the time schedule that
originally had been planned for liberating the POWs, but in this instance,
Nimitz gave his okay: “Go ahead,” he said to Halsey, “General MacArthur will
understand.”23 Until the end, Nimitz would retain control of the
liberation and evacuation of the Navy and Marine POWs from Japan.
Halsey had been a busy man from 15 August to 2 September. As
the media and the world became focused on the war’s end, MacArthur’s
appointment as Supreme Commander and his arrival in Japan to followed by the
formal surrender ceremony on board the Missouri—Admiral William S.
“Bull” Halsey had been “flying under the radar” of public attention,
successfully initiating the first landings of American troops, rescuing the
first POWs from defeated Japan, and organizing and leading the fleet as it
moved into Tokyo Bay. He would take General MacArthur’s order one more time from
the deck of the Missouri on 2 September—“Aye, aye, sir!” and
the planes would fly over the anchored ships. World War II was over.
Brigadier General William T. Clement, Fleet Admiral Chester
W. Nimitz, and Admiral William F. Halsey, USN go over plans at the Yokosuka
Naval Hospital, which had been taken over for treatment of released Allied
prisoners of war, 30 August 1945.
(Naval History and Heritage Command)
A Personal Historical Perspective
My interest in the history of the two weeks preceding the
formal surrender of the Japanese on board the Missouri in
Tokyo Bay was sparked by a friendship with a World War II veteran, F. Haydn
Williams, of San Francisco, who died in 2016. Williams had been an
ensign/lieutenant (junior grade) in the U.S. Naval Reserve in the Pacific
during the war. We both were appointed as commissioners to the American Battle
Monuments Commission in 1994, and Williams became chair of its site and design
committee for the National World War II Memorial. Our friendship grew over the
years, and I became a member of his committee. Williams had told me that he had
been on the initial flight to open Kisarazu airfield, which MacArthur dates as
having occurred on 1 September 1945 and originating from Atsugi. Prior to his
death, Haydn Williams gave me several artifacts/memorabilia from his time in
Japan at the end of the war, which helped spark my interest in what had been
happening at that time in his life.
One of these gifts was a white surrender flag made from
parachute cloth that had been hung on the propeller hub of a Japanese fighter
plane after its propeller had been removed. This was done by order of the
Japanese government at airfields across Japan as a signal to the Allied powers
that the planes would not be flown again in combat. Williams had taken one of
these from one of the planes at Kisarazu and had three Navy men sign it. The
first two signatures were readily identified—William F. Halsey and Harold
Stassen, who had been governor of Minnesota and then, in the Navy, had become
Halsey’s administrative chief of staff.
The third signature took some time and research to decipher
and then identify—T. S. Wilkinson. It was in Halsey’s autobiography that the
prominence of Wilkinson in Halsey’s life was revealed. He was one of those MacArthur
would have called “side-kicks from the shoestring SOPAC days.”24 He had
been one of the Navy men assigned to the command of General MacArthur in the
Southwest Pacific, and he reemerged at war’s end helping organize the
amphibious forces needed to begin the occupation of Japan. Wilkinson’s nickname
was “Ping,” and Halsey addressed him as a friend. Halsey mentions at one point
almost losing Wilkinson when the transport he was in, the USS McCawley (APA-4),
was sunk during the landings in New Georgia.25
The signatures appear to be in the same color ink and
grouped together as if they were all signed at the same time. Was there a time
when all three men—Halsey, Stassen, and Wilkinson—were together at Kisarazu
where Williams was stationed as part of the NATS base that had been established
there? Halsey said that he flew home through Guam, leaving Japan on 20
September 1945.26 Could Stassen and Wilkinson have accompanied Halsey on
that flight to Guam?
If so, one can visualize a young, inquisitive, junior
officer by the name of Haydn Williams walking up to this threesome who were in
good spirits, who had served together in a common enterprise in the far Pacific
throughout the war, celebrating their accomplishments and now anticipating
their immanent flight which would take them home. Halsey would have taken the
lead and probably said to Williams: “Hell yes, I’ll sign that flag!” and then
was followed by Stassen and Wilkinson doing the same.
The one thing we do know is that Haydn Williams could be determined
and dogged in his ways. We found that out during the site and design days of
building the World War II Memorial. At Kisarazu, he would have seen the flyover
spectacle on Tokyo Bay the day of the formal surrender. He knew that he was
seeing history made. Now, to have the chance of getting the signature of one of
the greatest U.S. Naval figures of all time—along with two of his close
friends—was an opportunity he could not forgo. I can see a young Haydn Williams
standing there on the tarmac as they boarded the big air transport plane that
would carry them home, clutching that piece of parachute cloth with three
signatures and knowing that he had been witness to a piece of American history
that would never be repeated.
--end--
1. Command
Summary of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (Gray Book), Vol. 8, message #19–0219, 3454.
2. Command
Summary of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, message #21–0517, 3464;
MacArthur and the allies were still learning the proper spelling of Japanese
cities and ports—Funakoshi is the place in reference, not “Fumakoshi.”
MacArthur also distinguishes between these “initial landings” being authorized
and later major landings which will be made on “H Hour,” and which will include
the airfield where the 11th Airborne will be landed. Those decisions must await
the success of the “initial landings” to be made by Halsey.
3. Command
Summary of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, message #21–2327, 3466,
3467.
4. Command
Summary of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, message #21–1431,
3357.
5. Command
Summary of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, message #21–2341, 3468.
6. Command
Summary of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, message # 21–0600, 3526.
7. Command
Summary of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, message #31–1745, 3482.
8. Reports of General MacArthur: The Campaigns of
MacArthur in the Pacific, vol. 1, 454.
9. Reports
of General MacArthur: The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific, vol.
1, 448.
10.
ADM William Frederick Halsey, USN, Admiral Halsey’s Story (Whittlesey
House, 1947), 126.
11.
Thomas Hughes, Admiral Bill Halsey: A Naval Life (Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 2016), Kindle location #109.
12.
William Frederick Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 152.
13.
Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 160.
14.
Halsey, 150.
15.
Halsey, 153.
16.
Thomas Hughes, Admiral Bill Halsey: A Naval Life (Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 2016), Kindle location #3662.
17.
Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 162.
18.
Halsey, 205–6.
19.
Halsey, 201.
20.
Halsey, 224.
21.
Halsey, 224.
22.
Halsey, 224.
`
24.
Halsey, 228.
25.
Halsey, 130.
26. Halsey, 235.
