TOKYO—Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who visited Pearl Harbor with President Barack Obama on Dec. 27, wasn’t even born when Japan’s former leader Shigeru Yoshida went there just six years after the country’s World War II surrender, by himself and feeling awkward.
Yoshida is best remembered for signing the San Francisco peace treaty with the United States and others in 1951, allowing Japan back into international society after its war defeat. His Pearl Harbor visit, which he made on his way home from San Francisco, was largely eclipsed by the historic treaty.
Archival writings and photos unearthed reconstruct Yoshida’s visit, from his aim to win U.S. trust to how he was put at ease by the U.S. Navy commander’s dog.
Yoshida arrived at Pearl Harbor on Sept. 12, 1951, shortly after requesting a courtesy visit to the office of Adm. Arthur W.R. Radford, commander of the U.S. Pacific fleet. The office overlooked Pearl Harbor, offering a direct view of the site of the Japanese attack of Dec. 7, 1941.
Radford recalled that he thought Yoshida might feel uncomfortable because of his office’s location. “I could almost see the wreck of Arizona” out of the window, he wrote in his memoir, “From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam,” referring to a battleship that sank in the attack.
