Although, by American standards of behavior, he did not show him an obvious disrespect, the newly appointed Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers obviously showed the Japanese Emperor that he doesn’t consider him to be neither a “deity”, nor a serious obstacle to the US-backed reforms of Japan.
by Best_Drummer_6291
9 Comments
mac arthur was an “interesting case”
There’s only one god and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that
The occupation and reformation lf Japan was incredible. MacArthur knew exactly what he was doing with the emperor.
I would have done the exact same thing in MacArthers shoes… perhaps above and beyond that.
Also I would like to add a bit of personal family history;
The USS Liscome Bay was sunk by Japanese submarine I-175, which torpedoed the ship during Operation Galvanic. NOVEMBER 24th 1943
My Great Grandma, had a dream the EXACT same night that something would happen to her husband(great grandpa).
She was given the terrible news around the beginning of December, by December 11th, in her absolute fury and anguish, she locked herself up inside her home for over two weeks, calling upon old ancestors and cursing whoever took the life of my great grandfather.
She cursed that whoever took part of his death will not come to see the next full moon.
February 4th 1944 the I-175 Japanese submarine was sunk with all 100 crewmen going down with it.
To this day my old folks do not buy Japanese vehicles or engage with the culture of Japan.
Still a sensitive subject, although diplomacy has improved between these two nations, there are people’s families that do not forget about past atrocities so easily.
The whole notion that the temporal power of the emperor had much to do with his godhood was from what I know a known fiction in the Shougnate era, it was less than a century of trying to do this and just barely, the sickly king of the Taisho era could be easily ignored.
And Japan believed in huge numbers of Kami and powerful spirts and thought some of there ancestors were them too, it was really state shinto that tried to make this notion work.
MacArthur was the original framemogger
Also at least according to American Caesar, the photo as Hirohito’s idea
While he was in many respects a terrible general, MacArthur’s role in turning Japan from the most militaristic society on Earth towards a path of pacifism was incredible.
Given Macarthur’s ego he probably had it as a “how do you do fellow god” moment