The Japs Get MacArthur's Orders.

The first Japs to come peaceably out of their bomb-battered islands landed on the tiny isle of Ie Shima, next to Okinawa, at 12:44 p.m. on Aug. 19. Their two Betty Bombers (Mitsubishi OBO1s) were painted white with green crosses according to General MacArthur's instructions and Ie Shima's Birch airstrip was marked with two white crosses. There were 16 members in the glum group headed by stony-facet, stumpy Lieut. General Torashiro Kawabe. GIs were more interested in the 12 crew members. The Jap pilots looked like Hollywood's picture of them: short, determined men with immobile faces and gleaming eyes, stuffed into padded suits and sheepskin hats. Everything at Ie Shima was cold formality as the Japs shifted to an American Transport which flew them to Manila. As their plane purposely swooped low beneath the clouds, the Japs rushed to the windows and gaped at stupendous U.S. developments on Okinawa. They ate a box lunch, asked for seconds on pineapple juice and offered the Americans Jap cigarets and tips in U.S. currency. Both were politely refused. In Manila the Jap envoys were reveived correctly buy coolly by courtly Major General Charles A. Willooughby and his aides. As the little Japs, dwarfed by their clanking samurai swords and by the tall Americans, walked woodenly across Nichols Field, some GIs yelled, "Banzai! Banzai!" at the Japs, who gave no indication that they heard the sarcastic yell. Three hours after their arrival Kawabe presented his mission's credentials to MacArthur's chief of staff, Lieut. General Richard K. Sutherland. Nineteen hours later the Japs departed, their brains and brief cases bulging with orders for the surrender and the occupation. They did not even glimpse their future ruler, MacArthur, whose habitual aloofness was now a distinct asset i his position as Japan's governor.

Flown back to Ie Shima in a U.S. transport, the Japs transferred quickly to their Bettys. The first white Betty took to the air gracefully. The second ignominiously piled into a ditch. No one was hurt. The plane's cred did not bother to commit hara-kiri, Jap airmen who had lost a war did not mind losing face.

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