Whose 31-star U.S. flag was displayed at Japan’s 1945 surrender ceremony?

Matthew Perry’s 31-star U.S. flag was displayed at Japan’s 1945 surrender ceremony. The flag had been flown by Commodore Matthew Perry during his 1853–54 expedition to Japan, which pressured Japan to open its ports to American trade.

Displaying Perry’s flag connected the surrender ceremony with an earlier turning point in U.S.-Japanese relations. Perry’s ships had entered Tokyo Bay nearly a century before, while USS Missouri occupied the bay for the ceremony that formally ended the Pacific War. The historic flag was brought from the U.S. Naval Academy Museum for the occasion.

Photographs show the flag displayed with its reverse side visible. The cloth was fragile and had protective backing, and the arrangement also reflected how flags displayed on the right side of an object can appear reversed. The flag is associated with Perry, not with the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.