European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 1, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Don Tate staff writer in the Shadow of the Long Gray guns pointed toward Tokyo the joyous Allied group pressed together on the battleship s decks waiting expectantly for the Little wooden legged japanese to make his difficult Way up the mighty to s swaying rope ladder. He wore striped pants yellow gloves and a silk hat that had seen better Days As had his country s War. In those last mad months the american giant was More galvanized and full of righteous Wrath than Ever before throwing thunderbolts and moving with great Island conquering strides across the Pacific. Soon he would be poised to hurl the biggest Thunderbolt of All. With every step the United states was wresting Back what had been euphemistically called the greater East Asia co Prosperity sphere lands that had been mugged and dragged kicking into the japanese Empire. After nearly blowing the United states out of the water at Pearl Harbor on dec. 7,1941, in the next five months the japanese spread like the rising Sun or a Rabid octopus seizing most of the Western Pacific and a bloody hunk of Asia. Names like Wake Island Guadalcanal Guam Bataan and Corregidor penetrated like Bayonet wounds into the american memory. The japanese wrote Edwin o. Reischauer later to become . Ambassador to Japan calculated that a if they struck rapidly and seized the whole of  Pacific americans would find the Road Back to Victory too Long and too arduous to be Worth pursuing especially if the nazis had in the meantime won in  in the beginning the Small men with the big swords indeed seemed 11 feet tall As they inflicted defeat after defeat upon the ill prepared head in the Sand americans. They struck fast and fought skilfully these fierce and brutal warriors whose military tradition went Back to the Samurai of Feudal Japan and whose loyalty to their emperor went All the Way to the fanatic. If the germans had in Adolf Hitler a Leader who mesmerized them into near Blind obedience the japanese were blinded by a different radiance. Emperor Hirohito was no less than the Quot son of  to dare look at him directly his people believed would strike them Blind. There was no greater glory than to fight die and be dispatched to ones ancestors for the divine ruler and japanese warlord the japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay were not shy in invoking the name of the emperor in urging their soldiers to greater sacrifices. Born and nurtured in a system that revered heroism and the Noble calling of the Warrior a and despised weakness a soldiers were taught that military Honor dictated suicide rather than surrender. As 1945 came on however it was the aroused americans with nicknames like a howling mad Quot and a vinegar Joe Quot and Quot Chesty Quot doing the invading in one bludgeoning assault after another it was the japanese who saw defeat after defeat burning through their bravado. Already Gen. Hideki Tojo Japan a leading Militarist and virtual dictator had been forced to resign. All the islands a Tarawa Kwajalein Guam the Marianna Etc. A were again in the headlines and Over each the flags of the rising Sun went Down like Thunder. The fighting was bitter almost beyond sanity. A you did not just capture a Jap Quot one Veteran said. A you extracted him like a terrible aching tooth. Ground him into continued on Page 14 foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu with Cane leads the japanese delegation to the formal surrender ceremony sept 2, 1945, on the deck of the battleship Missouri a less than a month after Hiroshima was obliterated photo at left of the nuclear explosion was taken from the town of Yoshiura behind the Hills North of the City. Rue Gnu Oswar ends saturday september 1, 1990 the stars and stripes a a a Page 13