Whose 1853 American flag was displayed at Japan’s surrender ceremony aboard USS Missouri?

A flag associated with Commodore Matthew Perry’s 1853 expedition was displayed at Japan’s surrender ceremony aboard USS Missouri. Perry’s expedition had forced Japan to open to American trade nearly a century earlier.

The flag connected two major moments in U.S.-Japan relations. Perry commanded the United States naval expedition that arrived in Japan in 1853 and negotiated the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. The agreement ended Japan’s policy of seclusion toward the United States and opened selected ports.

At the 1945 ceremony, the flag was displayed in the wardroom of Missouri rather than flown from the ship’s mast. Its presence was symbolic, linking the nineteenth-century opening of Japan with the postwar transition that followed surrender. This flag is sometimes confused with another American flag used during the ceremony, including an ordinary ship-stock flag mistakenly described in some accounts as the flag flown over the U.S. Capitol.