USS Missouri displayed Matthew Perry’s 1853 flag during Japan’s 1945 surrender ceremony.
The flag was associated with Commodore Matthew Perry’s expedition to Japan, which arrived in 1853 and helped force negotiations that led to the Convention of Kanagawa. During the surrender ceremony, the flag was displayed aboard Missouri as a historical reminder of the earlier American encounter with Japan.
USS Missouri was an Iowa-class battleship commissioned in 1944. It joined the U.S. Pacific Fleet and became the setting for the formal surrender on September 2, 1945, while anchored in Tokyo Bay.
The flag was not the same physical national flag that had been flown over the U.S. Capitol during the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, a common misconception. Missouri’s surrender ceremony also used another American flag from the ship’s stores, while Perry’s historic flag served as a prominent symbolic artifact.