World War II ended seventy years ago as of this fall. General Douglas MacArthur, serving as the Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific area, officially accepted Japan’s surrender on September 2, 1945. Many Arkansans may not know how MacArthur was connected to Arkansas.
To answer that question, Old Independence Regional Museum is inviting the public to a program presented by Stephan McAteer on Sunday, August 23 at 2 p.m. McAteer is the executive director of the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in Little Rock.
Hired as that museum’s first director in 1999, McAteer was charged with opening the new museum in the historic Arsenal building in MacArthur Park. Since that time more than 375,000 persons have visited it. He is active in several museum and history-related organizations, and has recently served as the Arkansas Museum Association’s president.
His program will focus on MacArthur’s connection to Little Rock, and how that museum incorporated the general into its mission and exhibits. As McAteer will explain, there are two connections with that museum — MacArthur’s birth and his return visit in 1952. McAteer will use the “MacArthur-Truman” exhibit that is on loan in Little Rock from the MacArthur Memorial to discuss the general’s later career during the post World War II era and into Korea.
MacArthur was a five star general, and upon accepting Japan’s surrender, he oversaw the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. As the “ruler of Japan” at that time, he orchestrated sweeping economic, political, and social changes in that country.
Old Independence Regional Museum has created an exhibit that is on view in the Honkonen Program Center titled “Remembering the End of World War II.” Included in that exhibit is a newspaper that announced Japan’s surrender to MacArthur.
The program will be free and open to the public. Normal museum hours are: Tuesday-Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and from 1:30 to 4 p.m. on Sundays. Admission is $3.00 for adults, $2.00 for seniors and $1.00 for children. The museum is located at 380 South 9th street, between Boswell and Vine Streets in Batesville.
Old Independence is a regional museum serving a 12-county area: Baxter, Cleburne, Fulton, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Marion, Poinsett, Sharp, Stone, White, and Woodruff. Parts of these present-day counties comprised the original Independence County in 1820’s Arkansas territory.
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