USS Missouri's deck was near the location where Commodore Matthew Perry anchored in Tokyo Bay. The battleship hosted Japan's surrender ceremony in 1945 close to the anchorage associated with Perry's 1853 expedition.
Missouri entered Tokyo Bay on August 29, 1945, after bad weather delayed the planned surrender ceremony. During preparations, a flag associated with Perry's expedition was brought aboard and displayed during the ceremony. The visual connection linked the end of World War II with an earlier moment in the opening of Japan to American diplomacy and trade.
The ceremony itself took place on September 2, with Japanese representatives signing the Japanese Instrument of Surrender. Missouri was not named for Perry and was not the same vessel used in the nineteenth-century expedition. The historical connection was geographic and symbolic: the modern battleship was anchored near the site where Perry's ships had operated roughly 92 years earlier.