Richard K. Sutherland

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Richard Kerens Sutherland
November 27, 1893 – June 25, 1966
Richard K. Sutherland watches Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the Japanese Government, on board USS Missouri (BB-63), September 2, 1945.
Place of birth	Hancock, Maryland
Place of death	Washington, D.C.
Allegiance	U.S. Army
Years of service	1916-
Rank	Lieutenant General
Unit	American Expeditionary Force
Battles/wars	World War II
Awards	Distinguished Service Medal Silver Star
Relations	Son of U.S. Senator Howard Sutherland (West Virginia)

Richard Kerens Sutherland (November 27, 1893 – June 25, 1966) was a Lieutenant General of the US Army and General MacArthur's Chief of Staff in the South West Pacific Area during World War II.

Sutherland was born in Hancock, Maryland and was the son of former US Senator Howard Sutherland, of West Virginia, and Etfie Harris Sutherland. He graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1911.

He served with the American Expeditionary Force during World War I.

While assisting MacArthur, Sutherland attracted antagonism from subordinate U.S. and Australian officers because of perceptions that he was high-handed and/overprotective of MacArthur. According to some sources he contributed to a rift between MacArthur and the first SWPA air forces commander, Lt Gen. George H. Brett. An anecdote has it that Lt Gen. George Kenney, Brett's successor, became so frustrated with Sutherland in one meeting, that Kenney drew a dot on a plain page of paper and said: "the dot represents what you know about air operations, the entire rest of the paper what I know."

At the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, the Canadian representative, Colonel L. Moore Cosgrave, signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender underneath, instead of on, the line for Canada. The Japanese drew attention to the error. Sutherland leaned over the table and ran two strokes of his pen through the names of the four countries above the misplaced signatures and wrote them in where they belonged. The Japanese then accepted the corrected document.

In 1962, he married Virginia Shaw Root, after the death of his first wife.

Sutherland died at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His funeral was held at the Fort Myer, Virginia chapel on June 29, 1966.