• MacArthur appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP) by Truman
  • Mac was 2nd to Ike in popularity at end of war
    
• Aug. 19 - Japanese send 16-man delegation to Mac in Philippines
  
• Aug. 28 - Col. Charles Tench + 150 land at Atsugi in C-47, were 1st Americans in Japan
  
• Halsey sails into Sagami Bay with USS Missouri & land the 4th Marines
  
• Aug. 30 - Mac flies to Tokyo in C-54
  
  • ordered troops to not eat local food, only own rations, canceled martial law
    
  • refused to ban fraternization of Americans with Japanese women
    
  • prison sentence if GI struck any Japanese
    
• SCAP General Order No. 1 was that Japanese disarm themselves
  
  • 7 tons samurai swords to San Francisco
    
• Sept. 2, 9:25am - articles of capitulation signed on the Big Mo with 5 pens
  
• Mac set up army kitchens, ordered 3.5m tons food, would spend $1m per day
  
  • $2B appropriated for occupation
    
• Allied Advisory Council ignored by Mac
  
• Mac became an absolute dictator who imposed freedom on a conquered nation
  
• HQ across from Palace in 6-story bldg = Dai Ichi (No. One)
  
• austere - worked 7 days week - no vacation - no tours - no $1m memoirs
  
• Mac didn't use telephone, secretary, assistants, no deputy, only face-to-face with men
  
• Seven-Point Plan:
  1. women suffrage
  2. disarm soldiers
  3. send soldiers home
  4. dismantle war industry
  5. hold free elections
  6. form labor unions
  7. open instruction in schools
  
• Mac reduced size of occupation army to 152,000 U.S., 38,000 Brit
  
  • Sept. 17, 1945 - Acheson offended - Wherry of Neb. voted no
    
• Stalin kept 376,000 Japan soldiers of Kwantung army, put in Siberian gulags
  
• Stalin refused to return 4 islands in the Kuriles that he called the Northern Territories, seized from Japan in the closing days of the war - no peace treaty signed between USSR and Japan
• Japan transformed - New Japan horrified at war crimes of Old Japan, but memory suppressed, crimes never acknowledged
  
• Mac dissolved police force & released political prisoners - including 16,000 communists
  
  • Feb. 1 General strike planned, but ban imposed on strikes by public emplyees
    
• Mac lifted all restrictions on political, civil, religious freedoms
  
• 2m became Christian - Shinto no longer state religion
  
• Mac worked in coop with emperor
  
  • Sept. 28, 1945 photo of two together when emperor made his1st visit to Mac
    
  • played role in spiritual regeneration of Japan
    
  • renounced his divinity
    
• emperor ordered stop to hara-kiri - Tojo defied order, but unsuccessful
  
• dissolved Zaibatsu industrial cartels
  
  • but 1100 industrial plants not dismantled like E. Ger.
    
• Feb. 1946 - Mac rewrote constitution himself
  
  • technically an amendment to Meiji constitution
    
  • emperor only a symbol - could not even vote
    
  • blend of U.S. and Brit - Diet with PM by upper house
    
  • Article 9 - "no war" clause
    
• April - 1st free elections - 75% voted of 70m pop., including 14m women
  
  • 1st PM - Yoshida
    
• 700 laws formed legal code of the future
  
  • written by SCAP & passed by Diet
    
  • abolished hereditary nobility and class privileges
    
  • divorce liberalized - elimination of sex discrimination
    
  • women could enter any job, including police
    
• land reform - one of Mac's greatest achievements
  
  • 89% came under ownership of farmers who worked it (1/2 population)
    
  • 5m acres changed hands
    
  • in contrast to collectivization of China farms after 1949
    
• public health programs - against TB, cholora, typhoid, diptheria
  
  • saved 2m lives, more than war deaths
    
  • increased life expectancy 8 yrs for men, 14 for women
    
• 1947 - allowed 100,000 man security force
  
• 1949 - "fall" of China - need for Security Treaty with Japan
  
• 1948 - Aug. 15 inauguration of Syngman Rhee in South Korea
  

Links:

• The Americans Arrive by Dennis R. Pitts from History of Yokota Air Base in Japan