On September 2, 1945, on the platform to the right of the main gun of the USS Missouri BATTLESHIP II, on the left was the tall triple 406 mm main turret, the Japanese representative was in this position at that time, under the gaze of the Allied generals and soldiers, the Allied representative General MacArthur accepted the unconditional surrender of the Japanese representative, and at this point, World War II ended, and MacArthur signed with five pens at the surrender ceremony, which was a beautiful talk, and these 5 pens were also given away.
World War II Fun Facts: Why MacArthur Would Send a Pen to a British General
At that time, the five pens signed by MacArthur were given to General Wainwright, General Arthur Percival, the National Archives of the United States, the United States Military Academy at West Point, and MacArthur's wife, Jean Mary Faircloth MacArthur, of which the first two were more special, general Winwright of the United States and General Percival of the United Kingdom, who stood behind MacArthur when MacArthur signed.
Jonathan Wainwright was MacArthur's assistant in the Philippines, and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Southeast Asia while the U.S. and European navies were weak in the Pacific.
At that time, MacArthur was taken away and commanded the American troops in Australia, while Wainwright stayed behind with the remaining American troops to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula, although the Bataan garrison at that time had 75,000 people, although the number was large, but the equipment and combat effectiveness were relatively backward, and finally, on April 9, 1942, Wainwright led 75,000 American and Filipino troops to surrender, of which 12,000 American troops, after experiencing the "death march", did not experience a human life for several years, until August 18, 1945. Only then did Wainwright meet with the members of the American rescue team.
Later, When Wainwright participated in the surrender ceremony of the USS Missouri and returned to the United States as commander of the Eastern Defense Zone, MacArthur gave Wainwright this pen to comfort his aide who had been tormented during the war.
The second person to receive macArthur's signature pen was British Army Vice Admiral Arthur Percival, who had fought in World War I, fought in France in the early days of World War II, became commander-in-chief of the British Army in Malaya in 1941, and in December 1941, the Japanese Army landed on the Malay Peninsula and began the "Battle of Malaya-Singapore", the British army was somewhat caught off guard, and the British Navy that came to support was severely damaged by the Japanese Navy in the "Battle of the Malay Sea", and the battleship Prince of Wales and the battleship Counterattack were sunk. In terms of land warfare, the Performance of the British Army was also "as always".
In the "Malaya-Singapore Campaign", in fact, the Japanese army strength is only more than 40,000 people, and the British army mainly the entire defensive force is as many as 130,000 people, after the loss of The Malay, the British army was surrounded in Singapore, the Japanese army at this time there were more than 30,000 people, the British army had more than 80,000 people, but the British army at this time and the British army at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation, in the previous rout has abandoned a lot of technical equipment, morale is low like a frightened bird.
Finally, on February 15, 1941, the British surrendered to the Japanese army under the leadership of Lieutenant General Percival, which not only achieved the successful adventure of the Japanese army "fighting more with less", but also caused the British center of gravity in the east to be severely damaged, and once the reputation of the Japanese general Yamashita Bongwen "Tiger of The Malay", and Vice Admiral Percival, like Wainwright, spent the remaining years of World War II as a prisoner of war until his release in August 1945, and then participated in the surrender ceremony of the Missouri.
MacArthur gave the pen to Arthur Percival, a British general, in fact, to comfort the general, who was also tortured and humiliated by the Japanese in the war.