World War II Database

1. Pete Campo (again) says:
17 May 2015 10:04:29 AM

Who is the officer on the left peering over Sutherland's shoulder when Southerland corrects Surrender. I lost the guy's name

2.  David Stubblebine says:
17 May 2015 11:31:01 PM

Mr. Campo:

You always ask such interesting questions. This photo is often captioned with “US Colonel Sidney Mashbir and Japanese Foreign Minister Okazaki look on” but Col Mashbir is not the officer looking over Gen Sutherland’s shoulder. Col Mashbir is the officer facing the camera between Sutherland and Okazaki. The identity of the officer looking over Sutherland’s shoulder (with his face totally obscured) is a difficult call but he is wearing a US Navy officers cap with gold braid on the bill, so that narrows it down to almost half of the officers on this deck. His collar insignia is within frame but the image quality is so poor that it cannot be made out (at least I couldn’t make it out). I was tempted to guess this might be Chester Nimitz but due to a discrepancy between the two men’s trousers, Nimitz is eliminated as a candidate. I have no other information on this officer.

There is a color video of these proceedings that shows a general milling about by the Allied officers so there was certainly nothing as organized as a record of who was standing where, especially by this point in the event where Sutherland is making his corrections by hand to the Japanese copy, which took place after MacArthur’s declaration “These proceedings are closed.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5MMVd5XOK8

3.  David Stubblebine says:
17 Apr 2016 10:43:54 PM

UPDATE: The officer leaning over Gen Sutherland’s shoulder is Rear Admiral Forrest Sherman, Deputy Chief of Staff to Nimitz.