On holiday in Japan earlier this year, I found myself gazing out of an upper floor window of one of the new international hotels built on the island of Daiba, a suburb of the great metropolis of Tokyo. Whilst the view of the city across on the other side of Tokyo Bay is spectacular, my mind turned to matters of the past. Would I be able to see, I wondered, the spot where the USS Missouri (the Mighty Mo) was anchored when the Japanese surrender was accepted on the ship's quarterdeck on the 2nd September 1945?
Unfortunately I couldn't as the ceremony took place away from my line of sight - off the coast of Yokosuka and south of Yokohama. What I did see, however, was what appeared to be a fortified island with what looked like gun emplacements dotted around its coastine. So, with my ever obliging wife in tow, off I went to investigate.
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| Shinagawa Battery No. 3, behind the Statue of Liberty |
Daiba is a vibrant waterfront resort area complete with bars, restaurants, shopping centres, galleries and, rather incongruously, a replica of New York's Statue of Liberty. At one seventh of the size of the original it dominates the beachfront and acts as a magnet for those seeking an Instagram ready selfie. The modern elevated railway that links Daiba to central Tokyo is a means of double-quick transit around the neighbourhood and we used it to get as close to the battery as we could. The Odaiba-Haihinkoen stop is an interesting twenty minute walk from the fortifications.
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| Shinagawa Battery No.3 |
Walking along an artificial beach and through a recreational area it became apparent that the battery could be reached by a causeway. Helpfully, on the causeway, the authorities have installed an information panel. From this we learnt that the battery 'island' we had seen was one of six built in the 1850s, of which two survive - Battery No.3. now open to walkers and Battery No. 6 which has been designated a wildlife sanctuary. Traversing the causeway we found that we could walk around the parapet which encircles what was an island. In the enclosed space within the perimeter we found a number of concrete bunkers and the foundations of a barracks building. The parapet was interrupted at regular intervals with what had obviously been gun positions.
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| Battery No.6 - Wildlife Sanctuary |
Interestingly there is a connection between the construction of the batteries and the surrender ceremony on the 'Mighty Mo' ninety or so years later. Constructed during the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the batteries were built in direct response to the arrival of an an American fleet under the command of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. Perry's 'Black Ships' entered what was the called Edo Bay and demanded that Japan open its ports to foreign trade. An example of gunboat diplomacy more often associated with British attempts to open up China. Anyway, the display of overwhelming naval power exposed the vulnerability of Japan's coastal defences and shocked the shogunate into action.
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| Surrender plaque, USS Missouri, Pearl Harbor |
So what is the specific connection? Well, the Missouri was deliberately anchored on the spot where Commander Perry had rested his ships in 1853. To drive the point home, Perry's 1853 flag - which had been flown when US forces first entered Japan, was displayed at the surrender ceremony, alongside the flag that had flown over the Capitol building in Washington on the 7th December 1941 - the day of the Pearl Harbor attack.
To complete the story of the six completed Shinagawa batteries, they were controlled by the Japanese Navy until 1915, when they were sold to the City of Tokyo. In 1924 the two batteries which still exist today, were designated as historical sites. The other four were removed or incorporated into reclaimed land.
To read more about the USS missouri, now a museum ship berthed on Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor,
click here.
