Under the Guns of the Missouri

The Missouri was chosen for the surrender because she was the flagship of the Third Fleet, the newest battleship in the Navy, and named for the President's home state. On September 2, 1945, her crew climbed onto every turret, ladder and gun tub to watch, and the veranda deck beneath her forward 16-inch guns was cleared for a single table.

The Japanese delegation of eleven came aboard at 8:56. MacArthur spoke briefly, then the signing began. Above the table hung the flag Commodore Perry had flown into the same bay in 1853, sent from Annapolis for the occasion.

Photographers stood in the crowd on the turrets. Nearly every image of the end of the Pacific War was taken looking down from those guns.

Three 16-inch gun barrels swing across the top of the picture, and beneath them the superstructure of the battleship rises in tier after tier of sailors — hundreds of them, packed shoulder to shoulder along every rail and turret top. A single shaft of light breaks through the cloud and falls on the wet deck. At the bottom, small and formal, the two parties face each other across the table, the Japanese delegation in top hats and morning coats at right. The eye drops through the crowd to the table.