USS Susquehanna supplied the historic flag displayed at Japan’s 1945 surrender ceremony.
The flag had been flown by Commodore Matthew Perry during his expedition to Japan in 1853–1854. Perry’s expedition helped lead to the Convention of Kanagawa, which opened Japanese ports to American trade. In 1853, Susquehanna served as Perry’s flagship when his squadron entered Edo Bay.
The flag was brought from the United States Naval Academy for display aboard USS Missouri. Its presence created a deliberate historical link between Perry’s nineteenth-century expedition and the Allied ceremony in Tokyo Bay nearly a century later.
The flag is sometimes mistakenly identified as one flown over the White House during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Accounts connected with the Missouri ceremony explain that the displayed historic flag was Perry’s 31-star flag, while another flag on the ship was an ordinary U.S. issue flag.