“What must have been going through their minds as they watched !?”
My mother’s brother served aboard the Missouri and was present at the surrender ceremony. He never talked about it. I wish he was still alive so I could ask him about it.
My uncle George was on a minesweeper (The USS Harper) that was the first ship into Tokyo Bay after hostilities ceased. They went in to sweep for mines before the Missouri came in. I asked him a few years ago about it and he said they were all scared when they did it. He said there were tons of guns around the harbor and that the they were worried that the Japanese would “change their minds”. The bay was surrounded by thousands of people watching them come in. I asked what that was like and he said “Well Clayton, as you can imagine, they all looked really pissed off”. That was my dear Uncle George who passed away last summer at the age of 95.