Which historic American flag did USS Missouri display during Japan’s 1945 surrender ceremony?

USS Missouri displayed the American flag carried by Commodore Matthew Perry during his 1853 expedition to Japan during the 1945 surrender ceremony.

The flag was borrowed from the United States Naval Academy and placed in a protective case near the ceremony site. Perry’s expedition had forced the opening of Japan to American relations in the nineteenth century, so displaying the flag created a deliberate historical connection between Perry’s arrival and Japan’s postwar capitulation.

The ceremony also featured another American flag from the ship’s stores. That ordinary flag is sometimes incorrectly identified as the flag flown over the U.S. Capitol on 7 December 1941. Historical accounts of USS Missouri identify it instead as a standard issue flag.

The Perry flag was a symbolic artifact, not the document that made the surrender legally effective. The Instrument of Surrender, signed on 2 September 1945, performed that formal function.