It was — quite possibly — the worst day to make a mistake.
Sept. 2, 1945 was the day Japan formally surrendered to the Allies. It marked the official end of World War II.
The ceremony happened on the deck of an American battleship, the U.S.S. Missouri, moored in Tokyo Bay. Hundreds of people crowded the deck to watch or participate in the momentous occasion.
Among the signatories sent by each of the major Allied powers was a relatively low-ranking Canadian: Col. Lawrence Cosgrave, Canada’s defense attaché to Australia at the time.
Cosgrave was the highest ranking Canadian military officer who could get to the ceremony in time, says Murray Brewster, a defense and foreign policy correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
“I’m pretty sure that he was in awe of standing among so many high-ranking officers. I mean, ones whose names go down in history,” Brewster recently told NPR.
Once the Japanese delegation boarded the Missouri, the proceedings began. The two groups of signatories stood on opposite sides of a table brought from the battleship’s mess hall. On the table were two copies of the instrument of surrender: one for the Japanese and one for the Allies.
Once the Japanese representatives signed, it was time for the Allies to do the same.
The process went smoothly until it came time for Cosgrave to sign. When he sat down to put pen to paper, Cosgrave ended up signing his name on the wrong line.
“It had the potential at that moment of creating a bit of a diplomatic incident, because the Japanese, when they saw that not all of the signatures were in the appropriate place, suggested to General MacArthur’s chief of staff that they wouldn’t accept the document,” Brewster said.
But the moment passed. Someone came up with a fix and the Japanese eventually relented.
The damage to Cosgrave’s legacy, though, was done.
The New York Times noted Cosgrave’s death in 1970 by writing that he “unintentionally delayed the conclusion of the armistice.”
That Cosgrave was remembered largely for his mistake didn’t seem right to Brewster. He poured through the records that remained of Cosgrave’s life at the Canadian War Museum and first wrote about his findings for Legion Magazine.
Cosgrave was a veteran of World War I and had lost an eye many years before the surrender ceremony.
“He went into the first World War all full of patriotic zeal and the slaughter that he witnessed in some of the major battles that took place … deeply traumatized him and deeply affected him,” Brewster said.
After the war, he served as a diplomat in East Asia. He traveled extensively in Tokyo and other Japanese cities during that time — cities he would later return to in 1945.
“Yokohama is the city of the dead, the dreadful effect of modern firebombing fusing glass, iron and household items into complete nothingness,” Cosgrave wrote to a friend around the time of the surrender after witnessing the effects of Allied firebombing, according to Brewster.
Brewster says that Cosgrave was “probably overwhelmed … at the time of the signing because of the company he was in.” He was surrounded by officers made famous by years of war.
Cosgrave’s story also comes with a lesson: don’t be so quick to judge, Brewster says.
“We live in an age right now where there are instantaneous judgments about people and about their character,” he says. “(Cosgrave is) known to history as the man who signed on the wrong line. But his life was so much more than that.”
Transcript:
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Tomorrow marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. September 2, 1945, was the day Japan formally surrendered to the Allies, except for a brief moment that day the surrender ceremony hit a snag. ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Henry Larson has our story.
HENRY LARSON, BYLINE: The official surrender happened on the deck of the USS Missouri – the battleship anchored off the coast of Japan, flanked by other Allied ships.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: In the Bay of Tokyo itself, the United States destroyer Buchanan comes alongside, bringing representatives of the Allied powers to witness the final capitulation.
MURRAY BREWSTER: There is, on what is now known as the surrender deck, a table, and it is where the instrument of unconditional surrender is waiting to be signed by not only all of the Allied nations, but also the representatives of Japan.
LARSON: That’s journalist Murray Brewster.
BREWSTER: I am the defense and foreign policy correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
LARSON: He notes that among the Allied representatives witnessing the Japanese surrender in 1945 was a Canadian colonel named Lawrence Cosgrave.
BREWSTER: He is perhaps among the lowest-ranking member of the military who would be present at that scene, or at least asked to be in the front row.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: The time is 9:05 a.m. The Japanese have been on board exactly 10 minutes.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LARSON: The Japanese signed the document first. And then came the Allies.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: General MacArthur signs as supreme allied commander.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BREWSTER: Everyone has to sign on the dotted line. And all of the Allied partners had lined up to sign. They were allowed to come and sit down at the table, where they would sign on behalf of their country.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave for Canada.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BREWSTER: He went to sign, but he missed his line. He signed below where his signature should be. The Japanese, when they saw that not all of the signatures were in the appropriate place, suggested to General MacArthur’s chief of staff that they wouldn’t accept the document.
LARSON: The flub could have sparked a diplomatic incident, but it didn’t. Someone came up with a fix, and the Japanese eventually relented. The damage to Cosgrave’s legacy, though, was done.
BREWSTER: Colonel Cosgrave is remembered as the signatory to the instrument of surrender who signed on the wrong line. And his passing in 1970 was noted in The New York Times as just that.
LARSON: Brewster wanted to change that. He pored through the records that remained of Cosgrave’s life at the Canadian War Museum. He learned the colonel had lost an eye many years before the day of the surrender and found a short book Cosgrave wrote about his service in the first world war.
BREWSTER: He became a diplomat and traveled extensively in the Far East and was very culturally in tune with the countries of Japan and China.
LARSON: It was partly those cultural connections that brought him to Tokyo Bay in 1945. And in the days leading up to that fateful moment, Cosgrave toured some of those same cities he had once visited as a diplomat.
BREWSTER: And he was awed by the destruction.
LARSON: Picture this man – half blind, having just seen what became of mainland Japan – surrounded by admirals and generals made famous by years of war.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Swarms of United States aircraft fly in formation overhead as the ceremony ends. The final United Nations victory has been won. The war is over. Peace is here.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BREWSTER: He was overwhelmed because of the company he was in. That comes through very clearly in his official report to the federal government.
LARSON: A report that makes no mention of his blunder. But Brewster says Cosgrave’s story also serves as a lesson – don’t be so quick to judge.
BREWSTER: We live in an age right now where there are instantaneous judgments about people and about their character. This soldier diplomat – I won’t give him the title of poet, but certainly a man with a poetic soul – is known to history as the man who signed on the wrong line. But his life was so much more than that.
LARSON: Murray Brewster first wrote about Colonel Cosgrave for Legion Magazine.
Henry Larson, NPR News.